"Apple is both a very important partner, they're also a competitor. When I look at PhotoShop, when I look at how mission critical that product is to professional photographers around the world, I don't really look at Aperture as a direct competitor to PhotoShop. In fact, I think what you'll probably see over the next few months or so are additions to the PhotoShop product line that will meet more than the needs of our customers making Aperture pretty non-interesting."
In addition to Apple….Microsoft has been working on software for graphic design to compete with Adobe….and Chizen sounds a bit more concerned about that threat…
"Microsoft is always a concern for Adobe or any other software company. They are a 40 billion dollar monopoly and I do think about them every single day. Fortunately, we have demonstrated over and over again that through innovation, we can compete successfully against them."
Microsoft already competes in the consumer digital imaging space….where Google is also a challenger. It is offering Picasa 2 for free to consumers….a package that gives many all of the photo editing and storing functions they need. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.