by , 10:00 AM EDT, April 16th, 2002
Yesterday we mentioned that VersionTracker had reported the release of Photoshop 7, and the company has now officially released press releases announcing said shipping (note that some of our forum members report receiving their copies). There are actually three press releases, one to announce the release, and then one each to focus on Mac OS X and Windows XP. The interesting thing about those press releases is the language of the two OS specific announcements. The Mac OS X press release in its entirety:
Adobe Systems Incorporated, the leader in network publishing, today announced the immediate availability of Photoshop 7.0 with native support for Mac OS X. Creative professionals and photographers using the Mac can now take advantage of system-level enhancements in Mac OS X to more efficiently create the highest quality digital images with Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0 software. While fully compatible with the newest enhancements of Mac OS X, Photoshop 7.0 also supports Mac OS 9.1 and 9.2.
"Adobe and Apple are committed to working side-by-side to deliver the best quality, highest performance products possible for creative professionals," said Bruce Chizen, president and CEO of Adobe. "By continuing to deliver Mac OS X-native software solutions, like the award-winning Photoshop 7.0, customers can enjoy working with their favorite graphic design, imaging, dynamic media, and authoring tools on the Mac."
"The release of Photoshop for Mac OS X is a major milestone for both Adobe and Mac OS X," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We have a lot of joint customers who can't wait to get their hands on the unprecedented graphics capabilities and power that Photoshop 7.0 on Mac OS X provides."
Adobe Photoshop is the professional image-editing standard for creating, editing, and retouching images that can be used in all media, including print, Web and wireless devices. It empowers users to meet tight deadlines and exceed client expectations — or simply meet their own demanding standards — all with the highest-quality results.
Mac OS X combines the power and stability of UNIX with the simplicity and elegance of the Macintosh, delivering a more responsive, faster, and more reliable platform. Photoshop 7.0 supports multiprocessor enhancements for image processing in Mac OS X, as well as taking advantage of the new Aqua user interface and smoother looking controls. Photoshop 7.0 integrates with other Adobe applications that run natively on Mac OS X, including Adobe® Acrobat®, Adobe After Effects®, Adobe GoLive®, Adobe Illustrator®, Adobe InDesign®, and Adobe LiveMotion™.
By way of comparison, we offer the Windows XP-oriented press releases:
Adobe Systems Incorporated, the leader in network publishing, and Microsoft Corp. have announced that photographers, Web and graphic designers using Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0 software on the Windows platform can now take advantage of performance and image processing gains. With Windows® XP support and Intel Pentium 4 processor optimizations built in to both Photoshop 7.0 and Photoshop Elements, Adobe is providing customers with the highest quality digital imaging solutions on the leading computing platforms.
"Microsoft and Adobe have worked together to deliver superior digital imaging performance for Windows customers," said Rogers Weed, corporate vice president for Windows at Microsoft Corp. "By running Photoshop 7.0 on the Windows platform, users have an integrated digital imaging experience, as well as a great solution for editing their digital images with professional results."
Adobe Photoshop 7.0 is "Designed for Windows XP," a designation that identifies software products that have passed testing to ensure they are easy to use, stable, and take full advantage of the stable architecture provided by the Windows platform. The Windows platform and the Intel Pentium 4 processor are ideally suited to deliver strong performance for demanding applications like Photoshop. In addition to Windows XP, Adobe Photoshop 7.0 also runs on other popular Microsoft platforms including Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 and Windows NT®.
"Intel and Adobe have collaborated to optimize the performance of key Photoshop functionality to allow users to capitalize on the power of the Pentium 4 processor," said John Davies, vice president of Intel's Solutions Market Development Group." As a result, users will enjoy a more responsive experience and improved image processing performance."
"With Windows XP, Microsoft has developed its strongest operating system to date, with enhancements that will be attractive to Photoshop users, particularly photographers and creative professionals," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Adobe's Graphics Business Unit. "Windows XP is great for customers because it integrates rich media capabilities directly into the operating system and provides a more unified computing experience, increased stability, and performance gains with Intel's Pentium 4 processors."
You can find more information on Photoshop 7 at Adobe's Web site. The company also has a PDF file on the new features in version 7. You can also join in on the discussion about Photoshop 7 in our forums.
It often seems that on the corporate side, Adobe likes to forget that most of its professional customers are Mac-based, and that the company made its fortune on the Mac platform. Mac sales currently account for a bit less than 50% of the company's revenues, but Adobe offers more consumer level apps on the Windows side that dilute those sales. It's little wonder that there are so often rumors of strained relations between the two companies, though both Apple and Adobe go out of their way to deny it. We certainly don't know the truth of the matter, though we are inclined to believe the official party line from both companies, but looking at these two press releases side by side is certainly interesting, to say the least.