Bill Gates taught us, and Steve Ballmer has reminded us, that developers are important, if not the lifeblood of a computing platform.  A computer running an operating system without them is nothing more than an expensive way to enable global warming.  So why would Apple, an operating system maker, want to compete against Adobe, a developer?  There are two reasons why Apple makes its professional applications like Aperture for photo organizing and Final Cut Studio for video and audio editing, one, to guarantee a minimum level of software quality that is available to the marginal professional user; two, to enforce its tacit development agreement with Adobe.  To unpack this we need some background on the professional software market.  I will use the photography workflow market as a case study.  In this space Apple produces Aperture, and Adobe produces Lightroom.  [Read more →]