Adobe tunes software arsenal
According to sources, this week¹s Seybold Seminars Boston/Publishing 2000 will probably feature sneak previews of an upgrade to Adobe's InDesign page-layout package, as well as a new application aimed at stealing the thunder from Macromedia Inc.'s (Nasdaq: MACR) Flash package for vector-based Web animation.
Adobe's (Nasdaq: ADBE) new "Flash killer," code-named Ground Zero, may put in a brief appearance at Wednesday morning¹s Seybold keynote presentation by Adobe Chairman and CEO John Warnock and Executive Vice President Bruce Chizen.
The new multimedia and graphics editor is "what you always wanted After Effects (Adobe's video-effects application) to do for the Web," according to one source familiar with the project. Ground Zero will export a wide range of file formats, sources said, including Macromedia Flash animations.
The software is currently in beta testing, sources said. San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe reportedly hopes to release Ground Zero in May alongside Version 9 of Illustrator, the company's longtime vector-drawing package, and an update to GoLive, its Web-site creation tool.
On the print-publishing side of Adobe's operation, the company may show off InDesign 1.5, code-named Sherpa, at the Seybold keynote event. Adobe reportedly plans to deliver the upgrade in April or May. Adobe shipped Version 1.0 of its next-generation page-layout application (originally code-named K2) at August's Seybold Seminars in San Francisco. Sources said Adobe may also take the wraps off Stilton, a long-rumored companion package to InDesign that is designed for managing publishing work flows.
Future revs of PageMaker
As promised, Adobe is also reportedly continuing work on PageMaker, its former page-layout flagship. Adobe is aiming future revs of the software as a general-purpose publishing package for business users that competes with packages such as Microsoft Publisher. The PageMaker upgrade, code-named Keystone, is reportedly scheduled to ship in the second half of 2000.
In other news, sources said Adobe is planning to deliver Version 6.0 of Photoshop, its image-editing package, this summer and ship Version 5.0 of Acrobat, its Portable Document Format editor, by year-end.
Adobe declined to comment on unreleased products.