Adobe Systems announced, ahead of MacWorld, that the next release of Adobe Production Studio will be available for the Macintosh as well as for Windows. This means that new versions of Encore DVD, Soundbooth and Premiere Pro will be released for Intel Macintosh. Soundbooth is one component of the Adobe Production Studio and replaces Audition in the upcoming release of the Studio. The Studio package also includes Premiere Pro, Encore DVD and After Effects.

While After Effects has continued with the Macintosh as the only digital video production application, the upcoming release will be the first as a Universal Binary that supports Intel Macs natively. It will be the first time Premiere Pro and Encore DVD have appeared on OS X. Despite the similarity of name, Premiere Pro was a whole new application created from the ground up at Adobe and has never had Mac code before now.

The new Adobe Production Studio will be demonstrated at MacWorld, Jan 8-12 on Booth 901. The next version of the Production Studio is expected in mid-2007. As well as the Production Studio, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator will be offered as Universal Binaries for Mac. Naturally Adobe Production Studio will continue to be available for Windows: let me be the first to put down the rumor that Adobe is leaving PCs!

Apple will no doubt be living a corporate dichotomy: the hardware and OS divisions in the company are no doubt opening the champagne now, but in the Pro Apps group it sounds a period of serious competition. Premiere Pro is, particularly in its 2.0 release, is a strong, modern application that appeals directly to Final Cut Pro's core market. With the full Adobe Production Studio available to compete with the Final Cut Studio only Avid are left with a weaker Macintosh offering than on Windows.

There's some additional commentary on Steve Kilisky's blog but I loved seeing this at the end (as Steve has attempted to explain before on Creative Planet's Digital Production BuZZ):

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