Photoshop at 25: Adapting For a Broader Audience
Photoshop 求變迎接挑戰
By Farhad Manjoo

Adobe Photoshop recently celebrated its 25th birthday. The image-editing program was created when we snapped pictures on film and put them on paper, and it has not just survived but thrived through every major transition since: the rise of the web, the decline of print publishing, the rise and fall of home printing and the supernova of digital photography.
奧多比的Photoshop最近慶祝25歲生日，這個影像編輯軟體誕生於我們用軟片拍下影像，再印在紙上的時代。它不但生存了下來，而且歷經每個重要的時代轉變都益加茁壯，像是網路興起，印刷出版走下坡，家用印刷的起與落以及數位攝影的耀眼發展。

Along the way, Photoshop attained the rare status of a product that became a verb – like Google and Xerox. But now, for all its cultural cachet, Photoshop risks missing out on a far larger market of casual photo bugs and their smartphones. Once we Photoshopped photos. Now we Instagram or Snapchat them, and everyone, it seems, is a photo editor. But not everyone needs or even wants a fancy program like Photoshop.
一路走來，Photoshop贏得商品動詞化的傑出地位，好比Google（意指網路搜尋）和Xerox（意指影印）。但是現在相較於它的文化地位，Photoshop正冒著錯失更大市場的風險，也就是智慧手機中的簡單影像編輯軟體。我們曾經用Photoshop修照片，現在我們用Instagram 或Snapchat編輯它們。似乎每個人都是影像編輯專家，但卻並非每個人都需要或想要Photoshop這樣的高檔軟體。

So Adobe is taking a big risk and reinventing Photoshop and, the company hopes, making it less dependent on sales to a small group of professional customers.
所以奧多比正冒著大風險重新開發Photoshop，該公司希望減少它對一小群專業顧客銷售的依賴。

The aggressive reinvention could serve as a model for other companies, particularly Microsoft, that risk losing business to more nimble app makers. It also suggests a path to mobile devices for software that over the years grew fatter as PCs grew more powerful: Slice it up, cut the price, and you could end up attracting a far wider audience.
這項大膽的重新開發也許可作為其他公司的模範，特別是微軟，該公司亦正承受業務流失到其他快速崛起的應用程式開發商的風險。這也為多年來隨個人電腦功能日強而變得肥大的軟體，指出了一條通往行動裝置的路：藉由分割和降價，最終可吸引更廣大的愛好者。

Adobe’s new plan started in 2011. Rather than selling licensed copies of Photoshop and its other high-end creative applications for hundreds of dollars each (Photoshop used to sell for $700 a copy), Adobe began offering access for as little as $10 a month.
奧多比的新計畫自2011年開始，不再以每套數百美元銷售Photoshop及其他高階程式的正版軟體（以往Photoshop售價每套700美元），而是開始以每月最低10美元提供網路軟體使用權。

The price change was initially met with fury from loyalists, who didn’t like the idea of renting rather than buying. Because subscription revenue comes in over time, the change also took a toll on Adobe’s bottom line. Its annual net income declined 65 percent in 2013, and it fell 13 percent last year.
這個價格更動一開始讓不喜歡以租用取代購買的死忠支持者火大。因為訂戶收入乃隨時間而逐漸增加，這項改變也讓奧多比的營利受創。該公司2013年的淨收入下滑65%，去年則是減少13%。

But the company sees the decline as the short-term cost of a long-term plan. By lowering the price of Photoshop, Adobe hopes to democratize access, gaining new users who, in the past, wouldn’t have been able to afford $700 software.
但該公司將營收下跌視為長期計畫中的短期成本。藉由降低Photoshop的價格，奧多比希望讓使用權大眾化，吸引過去無法負擔700美元軟體的新用戶。

The trend looks promising. Adobe now has 3.5 million subscribers to its Creative Cloud suite of apps (which includes Photoshop), and it expects to have nearly six million by the end of this year. Annual revenue generated by those subscriptions will approach $3 billion. It’s on track to beat the record $3.4 billion that Adobe made from selling boxed software in 2011.
這個趨勢前途看好。奧多比的「創意雲」套裝程式網路（包含Photoshop）現有350萬訂戶，年底前可望成長至近600萬。訂戶帶來的年營收將逼近30億美元，持續成長下去，將打敗奧多比2011年販售Photoshop套裝軟體時創下的34億美元紀錄。

Low-end photo editing apps are becoming popular – fast. Adobe may not be reacting quickly enough to them. Still, the company is forging ahead.
低階影像編輯程式愈來愈受歡迎，成長快速。奧多比對這股潮流的反應或許不夠快，不過這家公司仍然穩步前進。

Adobe also has plans to break up Photoshop into a number of apps, some of which it will make itself. Others will be made by third-party developers who will have access to Adobe’s image-processing systems online.
奧多比也計畫把Photoshop分拆成數個應用程式，部分將自行開發，其餘則由第三方開發商編寫，他們將擁有進入奧多比影像處理網路系統的權限。

David Wadhwani, the executive in charge of Adobe’s creative software, said, “The goal is to go from tens of millions of people benefiting from the technology within Photoshop to hundreds of millions of people over the years.”
負責奧多比創意軟體部門的大衛．瓦德瓦尼說：「我們的目標是把受益於Photoshop科技的人，在未來數年從數千萬人擴大到數億人。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/technology/personaltech/photoshop-at-25-a-thriving-chameleon-adapts-to-an-instagram-world.html

2015-03-17聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 莊蕙嘉譯 原文參見紐時週報八版右