Adobe's new online software looks great
Posted 16 October 2007 at 8:23AM by Simon Dickson in Doing business online
There seems little doubt that online software applications is how the future is going to be. Now Adobe is steadily getting in on the act: they've just bought the company behind Buzzword, a highly-regarded (but not yet public) online word processor, and an online version of Photoshop is in development. This follows the launch, through YouTube, of Premiere Express - a video 'remixer' tool - earlier this year.
Naturally, the company is favouring products based on its own Flash technology rather than the HTML/Ajax approach of, say, Google. And that means they're going to look a lot prettier. One expert has described Buzzword as a 'stunning achievement in design' - and even after playing with it for barely a few minutes, I found myself agreeing. Some have criticised it for a lack of features, but how many functions do you actually need in a word processor? If it has any failings, it's beautiful enough for me to forgive most of them.
The new online Photoshop Express was initially promised for this summer, and whilst there's no firm launch date, Adobe is doing demos at conferences. Judging by the evidence of this News.com video, complete with appreciative 'whoo!'s from the audience, they've put a lot of effort into usability: I love the way its 'menus' are thumbnail previews of what each change will do, rather than indecipherable text descriptions. It isn't going to replace the full-on desktop product: not least because it'll be free, whereas the professional product costs £500 or thereabouts.
For a taster of Adobe's approach to online applications, have a play with Kuler. It's a tool to help designers create colour schemes: but if all the colour theory stuff passes you by, you can just browse the collection of palettes created by other users, and pick one you like.
Tags: adobe, buzzword, flash, google, kuler, photoshop, premiere, youtube
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