In a recent MarketWatch article, John C. Dvorak suggests that, in order to counter pressure from Microsoft’s Silverlight, Adobe should port their software to Linux and design a specialized Linux OS that is optimized to run their suite of applications really well and really fast. Dvorak suggests this as blow to Microsoft, since it would promote Linux. It certainly would be a blow to Microsoft, but it would be even more of a blow to Apple, who makes some of the software that competes most closely with Adobe.

Right now, although I don’t have any real evidence, it appears that Apple has a huge market share among  those who use Adobe software as part of their jobs. In situations like theses, particularly where there are a bunch of computers in one building all running Adobe software, using a customized OS designed specifically for Photoshop or Flash or Premier or whatever you use. Naturally, this custom OS would have to run other apps, too, but I suspect that it could still be designed to feature significant speed improvements, too.

While I think almost every Linux user would support getting Adobe software on Linux, there are potentially some downsides. Once Adobe is in the OS business, why not get in furthur? If Adobe takes a big part of the OS market, they can use that influence to push their other products. In other words, if Adobe just unsteadies Microsoft, that could be great for consumers. If they replace Microsoft, they will probably become Microsoft.

Wishing for any big company, particularly those that already have their own monopolies, to expand is very risky. To some extent, this path of Adobe moving to Linux sounds great, but there are some hidden risks. Overall, though, I think the benefits outweigh the risks.

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