Adobe’s CTO makes the jump to Apple

Since the passing of the great Steve Jobs, Apple has seemed to be in a bit of a funk creatively. Innovation has taken a backseat to acquisition of the masses. Odds are, most of the strong ideas died with Jobs.

Apple really screwed the pooch with Final Cut X, which is just a glorified version of iMovie. A huge disappointment to those of us who liked Final Cut 7. While Apple has been struggling to make the necessary software advances, its biggest competition, Adobe, has been rocking it. With more and more video editors switching to Adobe’s editing software Premiere Pro, Apple has got to be kicking themselves in the rear.

So what do you do when your competition’s technology is beating yours? You steal their CTO (Chief Technology Officer). Adobe’s Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch is resigning so he can make the jump to  Vice-President of Technologies at Apple.

An Adobe spokesperson had this to say:

“Kevin Lynch, Adobe CTO, is leaving the company effective March 22 to take a position at Apple. We will not be replacing the CTO position; responsibility for technology development lies with our business unit heads under the leadership of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. Bryan Lamkin, who has recently returned to Adobe, will assume responsibilities for cross company research and technology initiatives as well as Corporate Development. We wish Kevin well in this new chapter of his career.” – Adobe Statement

Beings that Lynch had a hand in Premiere, the software that crippled Final Cut X, he should be able to provide Apple with some pretty strong insight as to what went wrong and perhaps even help Apple to rope back in some of the many disheartened Final Cut users. Adobe doesn’t seem too concerned though. And with all of the great features in their Creative Suite CS6, they won’t have a reason to be for a while.