Popular Apple Macintosh-based software Macphun has announced a name change to Skylum to coincide with the software’s transition to multiplatform status in an announcement from CEO Alex Tsepko posted to the company's website.
The expansion to the Windows platform follows Macphun’s success on Apple’s Mac, where the software has a dedicated following.
Sony Alpha Rumors speculates that Skylum could launch an official challenge to Adobe’s Lightroom software in 2018.
Adobe recently announced that it would end support for Lightroom as a standalone product, with a final update for the software coming in December 2017. Users the remain will likely transition at some point in the future to Adobe’s Creative Cloud, the cloud-based service that functions as the hub for all of Adobe’s former licensed software applications.
Macphun was founded “roughly seven years ago” and “released close to 60 different applications,” most of which had nothing at all to do with photography, CEO Tsepko writes.
“But the biggest successes came from our photography applications. We topped more than 20,000,000 downloads with our most popular applications: FX Photo Studio, Silent Film Director, and Perfect photo. Early in 2011, we launched our first photo software on the Mac App Store – FX Photo Studio Pro. A year later, we received our first recognition from Apple – Snapheal was named among the Best Apps on the App Store.”
Macphun’s lauded stable of products has given the company confidence that it can grow its base of users to include Windows, citing their consistently awarded software credentials as ample proof they know what they are doing. Macphun users will tend to agree.
Macphun’s two premier products, Aurora HDR (HDR creation app) and Luminar (photo editing), rival the best from Adobe and are among the products promised for the new Windows effort.
“We now have a vision of bringing photographers a truly worthy Adobe alternative,” Tsepko says. “We feel we are among the few companies who can achieve this goal.
“Adobe is a fantastic company and a well-deserved industry leader. We admire them and our products work within their architecture as plug-ins. But we also have a great team, our own proprietary technology, and the community support to make a dent in that Universe,” Tsepko said of his competitor.
The switch to the Skylum name will be gradual with the company continuing to use Macphun until the end of 2017 with the Skylum brand rolling out in 2018.
1 Comment
“Users the (that) remain will likely transition at some point in the future to Adobe’s Creative Cloud”. I think the reason people still use the standalone version is because the don’t want to go to the Creative Cloud so they’re more likely to find an alternative product.
I think these numbers will be a drop in the sea, financially for Adobe so they won’t care, but then that’s part of the problem with them – they don’t care. They’re making so much money through software rental that they can afford to alienate these customers.
It maybe good business but it’s not good customer service. Hopefully Macphun and other company’s will take advantage of this poor practice.