iView Multimedia today announced their acquisition by Microsoft. A very, very carefully worded FAQ includes: "Microsoft will fully support the existing Mac products, will continue to sell Mac versions of the current iView product line and will offer upgrade pricing to all Mac users of future products that may be available based on the iView products." "Microsoft will continue to sell Mac versions of the CURRENT iView product line" - there's certainly room for manoeuvre there. "..will offer upgrade pricing to all Mac users of future products.." - but not necessarily Mac versions thereof. After what Apple did to Logic users, who could complain ? Mind you, since Macs can run WinXP, it isn't so clear what a "Mac version" is anymore. At least Bill Gates will use the money wisely.... Sick as a parrot, John.

PhotoshopNews: Photoshop News and Information » Archive » Adobe Acquires Technology Assets of Pixmantec ApS: " Well well. Maybe Andy Rouse can get back to taking photos now. "Adobe believes this acquisition will not have a material financial impact on the company." no, because it was basically just a hiring issue. Some very angry people over at the Pixmantec forums, where they where sold the line "free forever" about RSE. It seems pretty much in character: who knows what went on behind the scenes, but it always morally if not legally dubious for Pixmantec to be able to market basically a clone of CaptureOne in the first place. So the track record was not good. A pity that decent people like Michael Tapes and yes, probably, Andy Rouse were taken advantage of, as well as the user & customer community. "Loyalty" seems to be a foreign concept to Pixmantec's founders. Setting aside my uninformed foaming at the mouth, the real significance of this lies in the first real world illustration of a point I've made here and other other forums recently (and been told I'm talking rubbish) - some Pixmantec users have suddenly realised they've got upwards of 10,000 RSP/RSE settings files, and that the RAW editor they've nailed their colours to has abruptly, and without warning, had the plug pulled. It is pretty bad of Adobe to act in this way: certainly, they have done no favours to photographers today, whatever their marketing bullshit says. It will be interesting to see what the Adobe cheerleaders over at PhotoshopNews.com make of it all...