Originally posted by Winder I'm hoping DxO continues to evolve and can provide competition to LR. If LR does go to the cloud, I can kiss Adobe goodbye and have an alternative.
I too hope there is at least one company that damns the torpedoes and goes full speed ahead in an attempt to counter the cloud. The OnOne marketing campaign after Adobe's CC announcement made no bones about setting it's sights directly on anti-cloud Adobe customers. It was pretty "in yer face." I liked it.
The problem, IMO, is that Adobe has had years to build what may well be the most full featured image editing program ever created and it will take years for anyone to come close. Photoshop has been a juggernaut since it's days on the SE30 when Kinko's used to rent out computer time in their stores to college kids who couldn't get into their school's computer lab (Kinko's made a point to mirror some of the less esoteric software available at college computer labs), local bands, budding entrepreneurs, soccer moms, and garden club grannies.
Kinko's introduced "DTP" to a whole lot of folks and I think that had a lot to do with Adobe gaining the lead in image editing and vector based graphics creation early on. In the late 80's and early 90's DIY flyers and newsletters created with Adobe software were rampant anywhere there was a Kinko's even remotely available. If you were in a band in the late 80's it was a reason for one of your bandmates to work at Kinko's...
I worked at a Kinko's for awhile and we couldn't keep up with demand for DTP computer time. Even after adding more SE30s reservations had to be made way in advance and that went on long after I left. As soon as powerful computing became affordable to purchase in the mid to late 90's, however, the masses bought the software they were used to renting or used in college computer labs (Photoshop, Pagemaker, Quark Express, Word/Office, Illustrator, etc.); software that would become "the standards". There is a lot of catching up to do for competitors.