On Mon, 23 Jul 2001 measl@mfn.org wrote:
While it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, I predict that the "backlash" will be gone in a mere matter of weeks, if not days. Let's face it: the people most likely to be Adobe *customers* are anything but hungry. A fat customer is an apathetic customer...
It would take a *lot* to alienate Adobe's customers on a substantial enough basis to affect Adobe. Most of them probably haven't even heard about this debacle and if they did, wouldn't care. But Adobe has one other check on its behavior -- it lives in the valley and *HAS TO* attract really bright geeks to work there. Really bright geeks have probably heard about this and are angry about it. This will hurt them in recruiting, and (unconfirmed rumor) maybe it has already cost them somebody they can't replace. Truly brilliant coders are different from normal people. They have something like a THOUSAND times the productivity of the merely competent professional and command only about three times the salary (Well, at least until they start their own companies, which about half of them eventually do). There is no other industry where three orders of magnitude separate the pros from the truly brilliant. Needless to say, brilliant coders can work wherever they damn well want, and I hear (unconfirmed) that one such individual has jumped ship from Adobe (or threatened to) over this. I'm still trying to confirm it, and if so, find out exactly who. Adobe's fine on the consumption side -- it's customers, as you say, are fat and happy. But on the production side, Adobe can't take very many really serious hits. At best, it only ever had about five truly brilliant coders at any one time, and in this industry there is just no making up for losing one. If it turns out to be true, their productivity is damaged for years to come. Bear