Apple's Photo Op, Adobe's Frown

And while the company priced Aperture at $500 -- $100 less than Photoshop -- its price point is nothing to sniff at and does not appear to be a move to compete against Photoshop on price, says Swenson.

Still, the stakes are big for Adobe. In the first nine months of this year, Adobe has sold $318 million worth of digital-imaging and video products, which constitutes more than a fifth of the company's total sales over that period.

Additionally, Photoshop is included in the company's creative suite, which accounted for another 39% of its total sales in the first three quarters of this year.

Sectioning Off

Those sales are highly profitable for Adobe. The gross margins on the company's products routinely top 90% of revenue; Adobe's net profit stood at roughly 30% of sales in the first nine months of this year.

Apple's margins are high for the computer industry, but they look puny next to Adobe's. Last fiscal year, the company's overall gross margin was 29% of sales, while its net profit was about 10% of sales.

Investors are expecting continued strong growth from Apple; at roughly 30 times next year's earnings, the company's valuation is significantly higher than peers such as Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). And tapping the software market may be one part of Apple's growth strategy.

"I can understand how this looks very enticing for Apple," says Swenson. "Gross margins are huge for software. ... That's extremely attractive for a hardware company."

Like most of Apple's software, Aperture will only work on the company's Macintosh computers. Sales of Photoshop for the Macintosh have declined in recent years as a portion of total Photoshop sales, according to data from NPD Group.

But in the year to date, the Mac version of Photoshop still accounted for nearly 27% of total Photoshop sales, according to NPD.

Its announcement Wednesday makes it clear that it wants a piece of that action. And it has every reason to believe that it will get it.