Microsoft snags key Photoshop developer from Adobe

By Ed Oswald | Published May 1, 2008, 5:54 PM

Microsoft has hired Mark Hamburg, a 17-year-veteran of Adobe's Photoshop product and most recently its new Lightroom product.

Although Microsoft did not confirm independently to BetaNews at press time, news reports indicate that Hamburg's likely new job is the "Future of OS User Experience" group at the company.

His last day at Adobe was April 23, and there is no word as to when his work would begin at Microsoft.

This likely means he will work on developing the user experience of Windows, which he seems none too happy with. Microsoft also apparently heavily recruited him, and he believed he had done what he wanted to do with Adobe.

"Now, given that I find the current Windows experience really annoying and yet I keep having to deal with it, this opportunity was a little too interesting to turn down," Hamburg is quoted as saying. "I can't imagine doing serious imaging anywhere other than Adobe, but, I needed to do something other than imaging for a while."

Such comments strike down speculation on other news outlets that he may be working on Microsoft's upcoming answer to Lightroom, code-named "SmartFlow." In all likelihood, his work will be more on the future of the Windows UI itself, and possibly in Windows 7.

Photoshop senior manager John Nack seemed to suggest that while losing Hamburg was hard, Lightroom will move on. "The cool thing is that having recently launched the Lightroom 2.0 beta, Mark leaves the product in excellent shape & excellent hands," he said. "We're really just getting warmed up."

Comments

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_ the floppy addicts pt1 1

/.o, alert of chat date (advi5e)tao

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%\KOFFICE STAFF/RESUME TALK,KCHEN(USEFULL PROGRAMS...STYLESHEET SPREAD AND OF COARSE MY FREE EMAIL/SINGER:1A,IF YOU'RE IN FRENCH MY MEDIAPLAYERS LICKED..YOU COULD HELP SEND REPLY SOON OK,.IF I UNDERSTOOD THE LANGUAGE I'D CHANGE IT MYSELF.OH MY EBOOKS WILL BE OUT SOON,,KEEP YOU INFORMED{- THE NEW +PROGRAMS -]EMAILS WILL BE REPLIED."KEEP IT SAFE .:,[ : ].BY>2:PARIS FONTS|||- 0 -|||'',l1..(newbie) m00t 4u,'@rworld travel.../action x change.,1/1abelvisp(*)[/0 ]123456W(R)X-|||- :=

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We want more heavy and eye popping effects for Vista. Hope, the next version of Windows will have it...am sure, it will

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From one bloat company to another, nothing new here.

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Wow - so one line about bloat and the world is going to change. Seriously it is cheaper to just bloat it a little then all the hours to re-code and optimize. 20 years from now the OS will be 1/2 a terabyte. So Bloat is just relative.

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THINGS COULD BE GETTING BETTER WITH RWORLD OFFICE TO HELP..A, THINK OF A COOL REPLY N' TITLE : TAME!

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I think this is good news. Working about five years at a graphic artist company many years ago (Mostly Macs), I learned that you can spend years taking PhotoShop classes. So yes, it might be busy but to handle what it does and can do - it's impressive.
More importantly though, the PhotoShop team knew how to listen to users (I started at version 2). Not just making it pretty but function after function. I assume this is is primary goal and hopefully he does it well. Even simple things like, allow the stupid Calculator to have a "Always On top Button". The list goes on. Who knows, maybe improve the snipper tool in Vista up to SnagIt's level. I think it can be a good idea. Even though I like Vista alot, and use it at home on four PCs, it wasn't WOW - just OK - nice progression. Maybe he will WOW us.

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_ GET YOURSELF AN ARCHIVE 2Mb download off kingstairs software its sure to advance you/

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I am the only one to think that the Photoshop UI (and the whole Adobe CS stuff UI in fact) is bad, actualy ?
I would not hire Mark Hamburg for a peanut a month.

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I am the only one to think that the Photoshop UI (and the whole Adobe CS stuff UI in fact) is bad, actualy ?

....aside from that *not* actually being a question:

Yeah. Up to CS3, it really sucked.

Good think Mark worked on it for only a short time before starting his main work on Lightroom.

I would not hire Mark Hamburg for a peanut a month.

Well, then I would guess it's a good thing they have people in HR who apparently know a little bit more about the guy than you do.

Yay! for posting trash about a decision you know nothing about regarding a guy you know nothing about!

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Compared to what? The Gimp? (ha, ha, ha).
It's certainly the case that the program is extremely bloated and has been for years but as an enduser, not sure that matters?

--->I am the only one to think that the Photoshop UI (and the whole Adobe CS stuff UI in fact) is bad, actualy ?

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"I am the only one to think that the Photoshop UI (and the whole Adobe CS stuff UI in fact) is bad, actualy ?"

No I feel the same Photoshop have always felt too Macish or something.. I liked Corel or Jasc products better. Havnt used the latest version of Photoshop, but im not really convinced that i actually like the new interface for PaintShop either.

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Finally! Now go and fix Vista for Gods sake!

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No! Oh please DON'T get a graphics expert to 'fix' Vista! It's shiny enough already!

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Don't you know how these things work? People all gather in the Microsoft boardroom and talk about how to play hide and seek with features and buttons people use on a daily basis. Lets hide all the menus! Yeah, thats a fabulous idea.
Its like a mystery game. Where is File, open, today? Where did they get the guys to program this new UI for Office 2007? The XBOX divsion? where they hide the bullets for the gun in Halo? Lets give it a fancy new title and charge $300 for it. What a fabulous job Microsoft has done with XP, why not improve on that? Instead of re-arranging and changing everything. Unbelievable. This is what happens when the people think they know better than what people really want.

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That was intended as sarcasm, right?

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Yea, you have got to me kidding me. Just because you want things to stay the same doesn't mean it should. Things change get over it.

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What I find most annoying about Vista, besides that it saps all the speed out of almost any PC, is that everything has been rearranged for no apparent reason other than "it's new". I can deal with the annoying program stops and even IE7 (which annoys me because the tool bars won't move into one and "it's new" arrangement) with all it's idiot icons. But something has got to give, eye candy isn't so important that everyone needs the next generation PC to run it.

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Im sure the people who dislike Vista, and the extra baggage of the Vista GUI, will welcome this news. Here is someone who could put the Vista experience onto the same page as ME in future wiki's.

I really like 64bit Vista. Its fast and appears to be shaping up to be very reliable, even compaired to my main Server2003 workstation.

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I've been running Vista x64 since Nov '06 and love it. I recently upgraded to 8GB ram and disabled the swap file. I know nothing of anybody's comments about poor performance.

Once this Adobe dude is done doing his thing, maybe Microsoft can hire me so I can put the repair install back in windows.

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