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1. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Jeff Schewe Dec 20, 2010 8:53 PM (in response to rproulxmtl)Why?
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2. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Noel Carboni Dec 20, 2010 9:42 PM (in response to Jeff Schewe)I've always wondered about this too, though in my case the question would be more specifically focused on Photoshop...
As far as why, one can imagine various reasons. One that comes to mind is that the answer could influence development plans (e.g., how soon to develop Mac plug-ins after PC plug-ins, whether to develop them together, whether to develop Mac plug-ins first, etc.). Another is that knowing better how a company makes its money can help with investment decisions.
-Noel
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3. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
JJMack Dec 20, 2010 10:25 PM (in response to rproulxmtl)Looking at the personal computers market I think you will find that Windows share is something like 91% Mac 5% and Unix 4% as you move into the business market unix share is growing where Windows and Mac shares are not. Photoshop is only on the Mac OS where its life began and on Windows for that is where the bulk of the market is. I'm sure the percentage of MAC systems running Photoshop is higher then the percentage of windows systems running Photoshop. Still I'll bet Adobe make more money from the Photoshop window version compared to Photoshop Mac version. Mac are few in number compared to Windows.
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4. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Hudechrome Dec 20, 2010 11:13 PM (in response to JJMack)Well, if there are 100 computers of brand A and 50 of them are running PS,(50%) and 10,000 computers of brand W with 200 running PS,(2%) brand A beats brand W, so design for brand A.
Right?
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5. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Noel Carboni Dec 20, 2010 11:18 PM (in response to Hudechrome)Sure, but what are the real numbers? The devil is, of course, in the details.
FYI, my personal experience is that I only get a few Mac users asking about plug-ins where I've sold a lot of copies to PC users. It seems my choice to develop for PC first, just based on the much larger number of PCs out there, was the right one.
-Noel
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6. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Noel Carboni Dec 20, 2010 11:21 PM (in response to Hudechrome)function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
Hudechrome wrote:
brand A ... 50 of thembrand W ... 200
so design for brand A.
Man, your math seems a bit twisted.
-Noel
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7. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Mylenium Dec 20, 2010 11:26 PM (in response to rproulxmtl)I don't think you will get satisfying numbers for any of that. The products are too diverse as are their use. You might be able to kinda reverse-calculate or guess numbers for a product you know well and know its user base a bit, but even then it will vary considerably regionally and what workflows are involved. You see, I have to explain time and again to my Apple-biased American colleagues that where I live I only know one company professionally working with Final Cut Pro for video editing and likewise nobody uses Premiere Pro, when the rest are in the firm hands and happy users of PC-based Avid products. You could assume similar things for other products and regions. And of course there is 100 PCs for every Mac sold, so that naturally figures in...
Mylenium
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8. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Hudechrome Dec 20, 2010 11:31 PM (in response to Mylenium)So my SWAG at 100:1 was pretty good, eh?
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9. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Mylenium Dec 20, 2010 11:33 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)Man, your math seems a bit twisted.
He has a point! You could have a ton of potential owners of a specific platform and none of them might be interested in using your tool while you may have less users of another platform and they all would be interested...
Mylenium
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10. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
c.pfaffenbichler Dec 20, 2010 11:36 PM (in response to Noel Carboni)The devil is, of course, in the details.
I’ve read (http://forums.adobe.com/message/3321064?tstart=0, though this is not an official Adobe-statement and I have not found one either) that Photoshop sales-numbers are not that far apart for Windows and Macintosh.
So even if that is the case the Mac-users might still be less inclined to invest in plug-ins – Adobe probably has market research on these issues, but who knows if Adobe-employees are at liberty to divulge such information here?
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11. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Mylenium Dec 20, 2010 11:51 PM (in response to c.pfaffenbichler)I don't think that the numbers fit... That would imply that of 4 million Macs sold each year vs. a billion PC desktops and laptops more Macs would run Photoshop and i haven't seen anything that would remtely confirm that... Mac predominance in specific creative businesses is long a myth of the past, no doubt.
Mylenium
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12. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
c.pfaffenbichler Dec 20, 2010 11:56 PM (in response to Mylenium)Mac predominance in specific creative businesses is long a myth of the past, no doubt.
My observation for the middle European market where I work is different; most people in graphic design, illustration and photography I am in contact with seem to work on Macs – but I’m aware that this is not statistically relevant.
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13. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Marian Driscoll Dec 21, 2010 5:40 AM (in response to rproulxmtl)~100% of Adobe's financial success is from PC's.
I vaguely recall somewhere on his blog that sales are roughly 50/50 between the Windows and Mac PC platforms.
edit...
"Last time I checked, Creative Suite sales were roughly 50/50 Mac/Win" - John Nack
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14. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Noel Carboni Dec 21, 2010 6:30 AM (in response to rproulxmtl)In all seriousness, the ratio of PCs to Macs in the world is reported to be more like 10 to 1, certainly not 100 to 1.
It's clear more Mac users do serious graphics work than PC users as ratios to all users of each platform, but it's not at all clear whether that offsets the much larger absolute numbers of Windows users. My judgment is that it does not. If you add things like the inexpensive Photoshop Elements to the list, the Macs lose more ground (and it becomes more clear the numbers of users don't necessarily directly equate to money made by Adobe).
The number of people browsing a pertinent web site in an arbitrary period can give some clues:
There's almost no question Adobe would not divulge their market research on this. It would not benefit them to do so, yet it could certainly benefit their competition.
-Noel
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15. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Noel Carboni Dec 21, 2010 6:29 AM (in response to rproulxmtl) -
16. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Mylenium Dec 21, 2010 6:57 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)I wouldn't put too much stock in browser statistics, frankly. As we all know (or at least should know) each of them can send fake HTTP headers to pretend it would be another browser and with mobile use becoming more and more common place these statistics are even more skewed. Of course you have a point about the the ratio of threads on this particular forum here, but again, it could be totally skewed. People asking questions on forums may not necessarily be the ones relevant for sales and then again this forum no doubt is just one among many. And I would still take them for what they are: At best somewhat representative for Photoshop, not all Adobe products per se. As I was already indicating, it's hugely different for video products and a quick excursion to the Flash and Dreamweaver forums also seems to reveal reveal that web design is primarily done on PCs...
Mylenium
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17. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Hudechrome Dec 21, 2010 7:01 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)The only thing I was trying to show is that percentages are not necessarily a good guide. I'd rather have the business brought by W than A, even if A approaches 50%. I chose a model not reality. That it might or might not be actual is moot.
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18. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Zeno Bokor Dec 21, 2010 7:56 AM (in response to Noel Carboni)That doesn't really count for much though because of piracy which is most likely much higher on Windows than on OSX.
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19. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Noel Carboni Dec 21, 2010 8:35 AM (in response to Mylenium)As I mentioned, these are all just clues.
I think the take-away here may just be that both platforms each represent a significant chunk of Adobe's business.
-Noel
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20. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
oouell Dec 23, 2010 3:56 PM (in response to c.pfaffenbichler).
Envoyé de mon Samsung Captivate(tm) par le biais du réseau de Rogers Sans-fil
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21. Re: How much of Adobe's financial success is from PC's
Hudechrome Dec 23, 2010 5:44 PM (in response to oouell)Sent through Qwest wired!






