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By David Rothman

Microsoft Windows Vista imageDetails from Boing Boing. Also see CNET.

Yes, Adobe‘s PDF-related software in its present form is hell on many e-book buyers, but I see some real opportunities for the company if Microsoft continues on its present path and if Adobe will change. Via Windows Vista, Microsoft is sucking up to Hollywood and at the same time trying to lock customers forever into its DRM, not merely Windows alone. Do hi-def video fans really want to buy new monitors just to please the the DRM-crazed MPAA and help Bill G’s cashflow? Voila! An opportunity for a powerful Microsoft competitor to gear up on the operating system front!

So maybe it’s time for a giant like Adobe to do something radical and collaborate with the open source community and perhaps Sun not just on text- and Web-related software but also in the OS area. Would Sun‘s existing arrangements with Microsoft get in the way? I don’t know. But Adobe would do well to check out the partnering opportunities there and at other companies, such as Rat Hat or even little Linspire. One might even be acquisitions fodder. So, in the apps area, might Corel.

Why the anti-trusters hurt Microsoft–by not forcing an OS-apps divorce

Microsoft’s present arrogance makes me believe more than ever that Bill Gates & friends would have been better off if anti-trusters had insisted on a divorce between the OS and apps parts of the beast. What better example than Windows-bound Microsoft Reader? But if Microsoft is going to do both an OS and apps, maybe Adobe can, too–but with the twist of open standards. Remember, when it comes to PDF, Adobe is already far more into Linux and a cross platform approach than Microsoft is with its own software. Here’s a chance for Adobe to play to its strengths and cleverly exploit Bill G’s weaknesses, especially his Windowscentrism. Remember, Adobe, as you well know, you can do DRM with Linux if that’s what certain content-providers insist on–but be more reasonable about it. Believe me, the marketplace would take notice. While Microsoft worried about home entertainment and kissing Dan Glickman’s posterior, Adobe could offer a higher-performance OS and keep going after the huge business market, a great fit for its current priorities.

To answer an inevitable question, no, Adobe shouldn’t expect to be OS provider number one. But that isn’t the point–which would be to generate new revenue while wooing customers for new and existing crossplatform apps and truly embracing Linux. Keep in mind the past. Remember when Microsoft was slow to understand the possibilities of the ultimate open source medium, the Internet? Other companies swooped in to fill the void. Microsoft eventually caught on and is hardly about to go out of business. But it is no longer the same fast-grower of old. In Linux and other forms of the open approach, here’s a chance for Adobe to benefit from billg’s Hollywood ambitions.

A (potentially) delightful irony: Perhaps some home-entertainment opps after all

The irony is that in defying Hollywood, Adobe might end up big in home-entertainment software as well. As J.D. Lasica has shown in Darknet, consumers will increasingly want to create and manipulate content for personal use, not just watch or listen to it. By paying heed to consumers and resisting the MPAA, Adobe just might find itself faring surprisingly well against Microsoft, too, in the home-entertainment area. It might even get into content, not producing movies but doing all it could to encourage the studios that did not demand MPAA-level DRM. Significantly, technology in the long term will be driving down the costs of making movies–for example, through the ability to create locations and eventually “actors” through digital wizardry. Alliances with the big boys may not matter as much as before in the future, especially in tandem with the economies of P2P and other improved forms of distribution. Indeed, via its graphics prowess, Adobe could hasten that day, empowering its studio friends with the fruits of its R&D efforts.

Still coming: The e-book-related commentary as to how Adobe, Microsoft and other key players could thrive with an OpenReader approach. Look for it in the next day or two, maybe three. I didn’t mean to go on in this much detail about Adobe’s opportunties from the Bill G’s Hollywood ambitions, but couldn’t resist the temptation.

 
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