[glimshe]

There is this romantic notion that the huge company gets it all wrong and a couple of guys in a garage with the right approach can dethrone them. The Apple story all over again. This success story is actually exceedingly rare in practice despite how much we like it.

But Abode isn't even that. They appear to want to create what Adobe creates, but with a small team. Something many other companies have failed to do with bigger teams and more funding. It's basically competing with Adobe at Adobe's game, but with a tiny fraction of the resources. Well, good luck to them, but meanwhile expect to pay Adobe's tax for a few years still...

[bsenftner]

Everyone misses that Adobe is not whatever software they are selling, they are that and a modern 16 deck luxury cruise ship completely loaded with marketing professionals. It's not only the software that has to be beat but that gargantuan marketing machine. It's that marketing machine that wins software battles these days - it sure ain't the software, as too much of it is not what the marketing claims.

[psd1]

True, but affordability and word-of-mouth can go a long way. It's not a foregone conclusion.

[traceroute66]

> Something many other companies have failed to do with bigger teams and more funding.

Even well-established companies once Adobe decides it wants in.

Remember QuarkXPress ?

It was THE desktop publishing software. Anybody who was anybody would use it. They had the monopoly.

Then along came Adobe with InDesign ... Quark are still around, but a shadow of their former shelves.

[robenkleene]

If anyone is interested, QuarkXPress to InDesign is one of the case studies in my piece on software transitions https://blog.robenkleene.com/2023/06/19/software-transitions...

[cm2187]

It is however true that the friction, internal bureaucracy and absence of accountability makes large companies typically slow and delivering far inferior products and services than the talent they employ are capable of.