Adobe Runtime 1 marks a new layer of mud

Photo of Kevin Lynch by Robert Scobie on Flickr


Adobe have released the Integrated Runtime version One, something that seems to indicate a new era. BBC4 are currently showing a history of India and last week there was a very deep hole with each layer of mud marked to show a different era (the British period is already several feet down).

My guess is that AIR 1.0 marks the end of the Geschke / Warnock layer of mud in terms of graphics software. The great thing about a blog is that you can rewrite the posts later though the dates cannot be fixed on Blogger. Kevin Lynch was recently appointed Chief Technology Officer, a post previously held by John Warnock. From the reports it seems that the scope of the technology officer may not cover all the products, especially the ones already developed.

So my question is why the older products such as Acrobat and Photoshop are still fairly expensive? If they don't need much attention in development maybe they should be offered as classics on a budget label. It is uncertain what will happen with Flash and video. But the world of Postscript and PDF is clear enough to be standardised and available at commodity prices.