Funny Adobe moment at IBM Rational conference

Comedian Mitch Fatel did a great job spicing up the keynote of the IBM Rational developer conference in Orlando today, but there was an interestingly telling moment I'd like to share.

So last night there was this big party at the Disney World hotel that the conference is at, and Fatel was making a cameos movie amid the 2500-odd crowd. As part of his movie, shown at the keynote with Scott Hebner, Danny Sabbah and Jamie Thomas, Fatel told one of the developers he really liked using Photoshop. He then asked deadpan if Photoshop was owned by IBM. "Not yet," the developer, in a German accent, said.

This caused Hebner to turn to Sabbah, the Rational brand general manager, with a big and slightly sly smile. Now Hebner has a great smile, but I couldn't help wondering what was going through his mind.

IBM has been on a buying spree for development prowess, what with Build Forge, WatchFire and now Telelogic coming under the Big Blue umbrella. But if IBM wants to dominate enterprise development of the future, and is wondering how to better bring Web 2.0 to the enterprise, wouldn't an Adobe-IBM mash-up make a huge amount of sense?

Think about it. I wonder what was going through Sabbah's mind.