Google has snapped up John Nack of Adobe. Nack was the Principal Product Manager for Photoshop at Adobe, he has worked on Photoshop projects for the last eight of his 14 years at Adobe. Significantly, Nack has been heavily involved in Adobe's recent push to mobile with Photoshop branded software products for smartphones and tablets. He will be joining Google to work in its digital photography team where we are sure he will make a big impact.
It's not easy to change employers after "14 terrific years," so Nack has let us in on some of his personal reasoning on his blog. There he said the most important thing to him is to make an impact, to make a difference; "I'm so proud of the impact I've had at Adobe. From Smart Objects to Photoshop's first-ever public beta* to countless little tweaks over the years ("I swear because I care!!"), I'm proud of that legacy. Now, though, I'll get a chance to work on some new projects. It's about doing something very different from, and I think complementary to**, the work I've done at Adobe." Nack also noted that he has been active in the Adobe and Google collaboration in recent years and hopes that their joint developments will go even further.
While Photoshop is definitely a professional tool which is in some ways accessible to enthusiasts Google's imaging product audience is broader and more hobbyist. Photography is of great importance to mobile device users as evidenced by the competition in smartphone camera specs race and people love to share their best photos on social networks like Facebook or Google+. With this in mind Google has been acquiring and developing photo editing and enhancing tools for years. Google's photo software history includes absorbing the likes of Picasa, Panoramio and Nik Software/Snapseed. Let's hope for some more impressive free photo editing software from Google in the not-too distant future.
