Right now, you must be considering the same thing as me: this is amazing!
And also, very much regretting why didn’t I buy Adobe stock ten years ago.
Adobe’s stock price continues to rise, thanks to the success of its cloud transformation strategy. The company, founded in 1982, has transitioned almost seamlessly into the age of cloud intelligence, with fantastic strategic execution!
And as the core product of Adobe: Photoshop, it certainly plays a vital role.
As product managers, what can we learn from Photoshop’s iterations?
I see four key product strategies.
I. Key functions
There have been 20 significant iterations of Photoshop so far, with the earliest version released in 1988. Version 0.07, very single function, and only supports the mac system.
What do you think it would be if you removed Photoshop’s features regularly and kept only the most core 2?
I think it’s: paths, layers.
In version 2.0, released in 1991, a “path” function was added so that it was possible to draw a regular, Irregular, creative shapes — as if drawing freely on paper with a pencil.
Although many people now think of paths when they think of Adobe’s other product for positioning vector image processing: the illustrator
The “layer” feature revolutionary for the image compositing field, first appeared in the 3.0 version.
Google will “layer” keyword most of the search results are directed to Photoshop. Still, I think, this is not the first concept created by Adobe, the layer of the word — coating, is a traditional manufacturing technology, Photoshop introduced it into the image processing software, to achieve superimposed display more diverse effects of the role.
Of course, Photoshop has many more much talked about features: brushes, filters, curves, channels, blending modes, etc., which, when you think about it, are all based on path and layer extensions.
Revelation:
1. The functionality of digital products does not have to be a digital native.
2, MVP’s core functionality is abstracted, can be used directly, and supports future flexible expansion.
II. Workflow
As a productivity tool, Photoshop, in its first few years of existence, compared to other similar products on the market. There was no clear advantage in terms of technology or functionality, nor terms of price.
So why did it later become the market leader, far ahead of other products?
The secret lies in its design and layout in the “workflow”.
Let’s look at what kind of workflow photoshop is in.
Image processing requirements based on an individual background -> pencil and paper sketch ideas -> go to photoshop to create -> Result output, applied to a web environment or printing.
As you can see, in this typical workflow, Photoshop is in the middle of the process, with related tasks both before and after, and also this means that there are constraints before and after.
The creation of images has a particular context: either a corporate mission or a personal drawing hobby. Environment, which is represented in photoshop when creating a new vision: color mode, color profile, RGB/ CMYK mode to differentiate between the web and print use of the image, and color profiles to accommodate different country, display, and display formats. Color standards for equipment.
In the resulting output, Photoshop’s configuration options can also be adapted to meet the needs of network devices and for printing purposes. Input standards for machines and equipment to allow better rendering or printing of images.
In addition to this, Adobe has also introduced other peripheral products, such as PDF file processing software, RAW digital photo processing software, etc., to enrich Photoshop’s workflow and progressively push the boundaries around Photoshop-centric Image processing workflow industry norms, once industry norms are in place, employees can continue to use Photoshop even if they change companies. The market share is further increased when a company can easily find employees who can use Photoshop, or when a company can easily spot employees who can use Photoshop.
Implication: to make a productivity tool, it is essential to consider the upstream and downstream constraints of its output, i.e., what kind of work the device is in an in the stream. If the user has to work very hard to satisfy the input conditions or find another tool to process the output, it is bound not to be long-term.
III. Cloud transformation
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the cloud transformation strategy is a major strategic shift for Adobe, not just for the photoshop, but rather to its entire product line.
In 2012 Adobe launched the Creative Cloud product suite, and with the following year stopped releasing Creative Suite series, the full shift to the cloud, at this time, the cloud revenue share exceeded 20%.
Since then, Adobe has continued to release Document Cloud, Experience The Cloud family of products will account for over 80% of cloud revenue by 2017.
You can look at the data and see that the cloud transformation has been significant.
Returning to the photoshop product, there are three immediate benefits from the cloud transition.
1. after the cloud transition, the product adopted a subscription-based payment system, with a dramatically reduced price that almost every worker could afford. (a) Significantly increased the paying subscriber base.
2. original files are saved in the cloud through Adobe accounts, so you can continue your unfinished work wherever you go. Designers no longer have to carry USB sticks around with them.
3, version update is convenient, no need to download a new .exe file every time you encounter an update, in the Click “Update” once in the Creative Cloud, wait a few minutes, and it’s done.
Revelation: cloud transformation should be decisive and thorough; the subscription-based monthly payment model is more acceptable and affordable to the majority of users and the more stable and predictable income for the enterprise.
IV. Intelligent
In the latest 2020 release, Photoshop is showing off its full application of AI capabilities. Check out the following video.
It’s a huge productivity boost for creative work; it’s also a boon for beginners: keying doesn’t require learning to use a pen! Trace or Alpha channel, paint along the outline, and the algorithm will do the rest.
Caution: this is not very friendly to sharpening your skill level, as you will not be able to dig into what the principle behind it is or is true. What are the operational steps?
The takeaway: while it’s good to have productivity tools that are smart as icing on the cake, it’s also important to be wary of their imprisoning of user creativity and growth.
Imagine when a tool is smart enough to do 99% of the work, will that still retain the original 99% of users?
The direction of intelligence will never replace the real user but to take away those tedious, repetitive tasks for the user and give them more time to think about better and more important things.
One sentence sums up the full text.
Photoshop, a world-class software product, now employs a plethora of intelligent technologies to assist its users. But in the early days, it had only two core functions: paths and layers. It responded to the times by successfully transforming to the cloud while adopting a cloud-based subscription-based payment system that drove its market share and Huge enterprise boost in revenue.
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Hello everyone, I am kurokoz.
This is my first post on medium, thanks for reading!
