Microsoft is in the process of developing an application called Acrylic. It is being touted as Microsofts answer to photoshop. I am not sure why it is because it is nothing like it and isnt even in the same arena as photoshop. If I was to compare it with something it would be a cross between Freehand and a very early version of Fireworks, but that’s being very generous and probably detrimental to Macromedia.
The first feel is like Freehand/Illustrator because of the blank A4 page layout in front of you. When you import a bitmap, you can double click on it to go into a bitmap editing mode in a different window, this is where the reference to early fireworks comes in. Macromedia dropped this to go to a completely integrated bitmap editing environment which works much better in my opinion.
The panel sets are totally different to all the other apps out there, why? it makes it counter intuitive, they should just stick with the tried and true. It supports all the latest graphic hoo haa like transparent alpha gradients, etc, I dont know how well it imports files like illustrator, eps, etc.
I doubt it will compete with the big boys, but might be good for the Microsoft centric home user.
My 2c.