Graphics news

Microsoft to enter the professional design market?

Microsoft has announced the release of a beta version of a professional level digital image and vector illustration application called Acrylic.

The name Acrylic is actually the project codeword. The graphics application itself is based on a product called Expression, which Microsoft gained when they bought out software development company Creature House, in 2003.

Acrylic contains a mixture of digital photo editing tools, vector-like drawing and natural painting tools. All features which have got some design professionals seeing Acrylic as a direct challenge to the graphics industry's established packages, such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel's Draw and Painter.

Whether Acrylic makes it off the drawing board is yet to be seen. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are so established in the professional graphics market, that any new application had better be of a very superior nature. Especially now that the Adobe and Macromedia merger has gone ahead, making Adobe an even larger force in the graphics industry.

The Acrylic beta download is available from Microsoft's web site and is time limited until 1st October 2005. It is available only for Windows XP, although no word has been released as to whether there will be a Mac version in the final release - should there be one.

This is an interesting move for Microsoft, which has rarely made serious attempts to gain inroads into the professional design market. It's previous graphics tools being very much based on the home user market. However, Microsoft has also been working on a new digital document management system, called Metro, as a possible contender to PostScript and the PDF file format.

However, Metro won't be available until their next operating system update, Longhorn, is released. Metro will also require printer manufacturers to rewrite driver software. PostScript is also so deeply ingrained in the design, print and publishing industry, that any new technology would have to offer some very special features.

With Macromedia now safely under Adobe's control, perhaps we have found the new counterbalance for the design software industry?

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