Analysis: Apple's Acquisition of Nothing Real: Insanely Great or Just Plain Insane?

Feb. 7, 2002

Apple's acquisition of Nothing Real, developer of the Tremor and Shake compositing systems, poses some serious questions with regard to the digital media marketplace. Tremor and Shake run on Linux, Windows, and the Irix operating systems. Apple sells Power Macs running OS X. So what does this mean to those artists who use Nothing Real's tools for creating their art? Will support be offered to those who have purchased the turnkey Tremor systems at prices starting at $75,000 on up to $140,000? [an error occurred while processing this directive] Because as of Feb. 6, 2002, Nothing Real no longer exists. Specifically, what do third party developers who build creative software for the Macintosh platform think of Apple's continued acquisitions in the software application market, the bread and butter of these developers?

Apple buys the video editing engine called Key Grip from Macromedia and turns out a product called Final Cut Pro. Apple acquires DVD authoring companies Spruce Technologies and Astarte, and have two applications that address the market, DVD Studio Pro and iDVD, running only on the Mac OS and presumably using the technology that Apple acquired from the two companies. When Spruce was an independent company, it offered Windows-only DVD authoring solutions, and the company stated that they would never develop DVD authoring software for the Macintosh platform. Now Spruce is gone and development of its Windows DVD authoring tools have since ceased with the acquisition of the company by Apple Computer. What will the future see for those who have purchased seats and maintenance contracts of Tremor and Shake from Nothing Real, and will we see continued development of these tools on the platforms to which they currently exist?

Rumors abounded that the powers that be at Adobe Systems became pretty tweaked when Apple shipped Final Cut Pro, which some feel is a competitor to Adobe Premiere. Those same Adobe execs have got to be miffed that Apple acquired Nothing Real, which falls into the same category as Adobe After Effects. In spite of pricing that no longer exists, what it all comes down to is Tremor and Shake and After Effects are compositing tools. Granted, After Effects only runs on Mac and Windows platforms, but the fact is, Apple now has a high end 3D compositing solution that the company says it will incorporate into "future versions of its products."

So what is Jobs and Co. doing, acquiring all these creative media tools? Are they slowly but surely putting together an entire cadre of tools for content creation that will run only on Mac OS X? What is next? A 3D animation tool along the lines of LightWave 3D or Alias|Wavefront's Maya? An image editing tool along the lines of Adobe Photoshop?

What Apple is doing, acquiring these software developers can be described as insanely great or just plain insane.

These moves can be seen as insanely great because the fact that all these tools are housed under one roof enables Apple to offer "the whole widget" as Jobs continues to say at trade show after trade show after trade show. This gives Apple the capability to optimize its hardware and operating system in line with its software applications (in a somewhat similar fashion that Microsoft was accused of doing with its Windows OS division and its applications division). This also ensures that creative media tools will always be available for the Macintosh OS if third party developers decide that it is not in their best interest to develop for the Macintosh platform.

These maneuvers can also be described as just plain insane because these acquisitions will surely continue to anger those who develop creative tools for the Macintosh. In spite of what Adobe says on its web site, the company must be stewing over the release of Final Cut Pro, and has to be concerned with Apple's latest acquisition of Nothing Real. If Apple were to acquire the struggling Electric Image, would NewTek or Alias|Wavefront continue to develop their 3D animation tools for the Macintosh? Would there be incentive to do so? Or would they drop what is essentially a niche market for them and devote their resources to the Windows platform or IRIX or the growing Linux platform?
If Adobe were to stop developing Photoshop for the Mac, where would Mac users who rely on Photoshop turn to get the tools they need to get the job done? The Windows version? Apple is walking a fine line with the acquisition of these software developers, a line that some in the industry believe Apple has already crossed.

John B. Virata is a senior producer at
www.DigitalMediaNet.com. His views are his own and do not reflect the views of the company.

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