M$ take on Adobe?
mijlee (501 pencils) | Sat, 2005-09-17 23:39Microsoft, not happy with destroying any chance of having useable office software and forcing us to use such greats as PowerPoint and Word, have now seen fit to enter our sacred arena. They are going to release a new set of products called “Expressions”.
Aimed squarely at the professional digital designer my first impression is that they ALL look like lame attempts to copy Adobe and Macromedia products, but then i am sitting here hoping like hell that it will fail. The only thing that looks promising is the interactive tool which seems to be totally standards compliant which is a big plus.
I guess the 3D functionality looks interesting too but no better than Illustrator
http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/
Will be interesting how Adobes rumoured PhotoPro software will compare although this looks more like it is aimed at Photography rather than design.
----------------------
http://mijlee.com
----------------------
Commenting on this Forum topic is closed.
That stuff is amateur hour at best. They're bragging about the graphic design program being compatible with "industry standards" such as Microsoft Office... LOL!!!
Adobe's took a quick look at this, laughed, and went on their merry way trying to come up with a copy protection scheme we couldn't crack in under an hour, and trying to decide which keyboard commands to change yet again for the next version of CS.
BTW, Apple is rumored to have an app called PhotoPro, not Adobe.
------------
-----------
Visit The Graphic Mac for graphics and Mac OS tips, reviews, tutorials and discussion.
I've used Expression before MS bought it and I really love this program. Mind you, this was when Epression was just a vector/paint program. I've used it to make many magazine illustrations and they've (production-wise) come out great. This whole Sparkle platform though - we'll have to wait and see. I think it has some potential over Flash to build applications but whether it will be truly cross platform... I wouldn't hold your breath.
...are those boneheads at MS forgetting to include a print design component in their CS/Quark/MMedia-killer? Oh wait, maybe they think we'll all trash our copies of ID or Quark (as well as our Macs) and use Publisher or Word to design the next annual report or magazine?
Jim Canavan
Alexandria, VA USA