What's different
Honestly, I have no idea what they might offer that is distinctive. I am unfamiliar with their competitors, and I am unfamiliar with ADBE's current online offerings. I'm simply pointing out what ADBE may be trying -- and, I assume, ADBE believes it's got an edge in image manipulation that it can leverage in this competition.
If ADBE has not actually got an edge in this, it will die horribly, soon. The fact people view the company as having value suggests to me there's broad belief the company has some sustainable advantage. If not, it's just a commodity vendor and will have its margins crushed.
Maybe that's your point? That ADBE hasn't got anything going for it but an installed base and a brand name, and the next person to write an app like Acorn will start churning through ADBE's market share and profits?
For my part, I've never claimed special knowledge of or confidence in ADBE's products, but assuming they form a plausible business, there's no reason to pooh-pooh their shot at trying to make a go of it with software as a service, other perhaps than in the course of lambasting all software as a service as a business model, but I didn't think that was your point. Companies like SAS (the statistics package) have done pretty well renting out desktop software, and I expect that if they offered the same power on a per-transaction basis they could make money at that, too. And Google has made some money offering software as a service (by letting folks use its computers and data to perform searches) without any subscription fees at all, using ad support -- and it's made money that would have shocked me to the core to hear about ten years ago.
So, I'm willing to suspend disbelief and let ADBE try to make a go of it online to grow its business, or advertise its tools to new people who don't know the system. Frankly, I find ADBE's interface to be intimidating and inaccessible, so perhaps a freeware SaaS version might offer "training" for prospective buyers. Whatever the case, I'm not an ADBE shareholder, or an ADBE short, so I haven't got a dog in the fight. I'm just withholding judgment.
So far, they don't seem bonkers yet.
Take care,
--Tex.
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