Apple has done what most companies never do, released a product before its projected announce date. With Intel-driven iMacs, Mac minis, and MacBook Pros in many homes and businesses months before the announced date of June of this year, there are a lot of happy campers.

But Camp Mac isn’t all happy as there are some in Media Forrest that are scratching their heads as to why Adobe won’t release a Universal version of Creative Suite, Studio, or After Effects (which was actually just released as 7.0). Reports stating that Photoshop is a dog in Rosetta may hold some of those pros off from getting a snazzy new Mac with that Intel inside.

Also, the Office Lake section of the camp is wondering about Microsoft and its lovely Office suite. Sure, there’s the Apple iWork alternative, but when you’re dug in, you’re dug in and those who’ve already invested into Office for the Mac want a Universal version. I myself have noticed how slow Office 2004 applications start up when compared to other Universal apps.

Ya, new updates would be nice from both of these camps and soon. Truth is, though, neither is giving any time indication and history shows both to release major updates about every 12 to 18 months. That could mean a fall release of Adobe stuff (at best) and most likely a 2007 release for any of these products. What’s that going to do for Apple?

This comes back to the question SvenOnTech posed last year at the Intel announcement. Would it hurt sales of current PowerPC stock? Well, while Apple did see a slight dip down, overall it didn’t. It probably won’t hurt Apple on its PowerMac sales, either. It’ll keep the pro workstations around churning the IBM chips until the two knucklehead companies decide to release Universal applications. Once that happens, it’s most likely you’ll see Apple release Intel versions of the workstations and discontinue the PowerPC hardware.

Apple most likely isn’t going to get hurt by Adobe’s and Microsoft’s lack of attention to new technology. In fact, I’d venture to say it will be these two companies that will see some suffering to the bottom line. I can tell you right now that I won’t be purchasing Office 2004 for my Mac because I know eventually there’ll be a Universal version out and why blow a few hundred on a slower version? I’ll manage on my even older version of Office X until the upgrade as well as my copy of Photoshop 7. For me and many others like me, we don’t have that kind of dispensable cash to just throw at software when we want. I hope Adobe and Microsoft realize that sooner than later.

[tags]microsoft,adobe,powermac,universal,lack of update[/tags]