Why isn't there an Adobe OS?

Why hasn't Adobe built it's own operating system? I've been thinking about OSs lately, and reading up on SGI's Irix, a system that I would love to get my hands on and play with. It got me thinking about software integration and what I'd want in an OS.

There was a time, maybe 10 years ago when I thought that an integrated OS and software package might be coming around the corner. Avid had a pretty good set up using Avid Studio and related software that showed how one file type could be opened, manipulated and understood by a variety of applications. At the time, it ran exclusively on Mac OS, but didn't work with non-Avid apps.

Likewise, Microsoft was making Office, which is overburdened with too many widgets now but had potential at one point.

The other big software giants at the time, Adobe and Aldus were working on similar projects. Aldus was trying to integrate its two flagship products, Pagemaker and Freehand. Adobe was trying to get Photoshop and Illustrator to integrate. Around that same time, Adobe bought out Aldus, and added PageMaker (and later inDesign, which while branded separately -- and drawing its workflow paradigm from FrameMaker, Aldus' other major product -- seemed to gain it's parentage from PageMaker).

Sadly, these plans went nowhere (probably for legitimate reasons that I just don't understand). Instead, the new paradigm became "browser/desktop" and the battle was between Microsoft and Mosaic -- later to become Netscape)

Now, Irix has been abandoned by its creator, Silicon Graphics, and has not been made open source or freely available (if we're fortunate, maybe Adobe is working on developing it as the basis for a new OS! I dream, I know. Irix was designed to work on specific hardware using MIPS chipsets, but that same hardware now runs Red Hat Linux, so someone knows how to port code to and from that chipset).

What I would want in the ulitmate OS:

Such a venture might be risky -- anti-trust lawsuits seem to be attracted to closed platforms. But complete devices as closed units aren't unknown - look at RIM's Blackberry. You can make a successful closed product, but to give it broad appeal might be the tricky part. Any takers out there?

— SGP

Vicarious Vistas - by Stephen G Parks

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Why isn't there an Adobe OS?

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