Adobe to aquire Macromedia.

[brit]

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.

The combination of Adobe and Macromedia will provide customers a more powerful set of solutions for creating, managing and delivering compelling content and experiences across multiple operating systems, devices and media. Together, the two companies will meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments.

http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia...acromedia.html

Osnap. This is going to be the biggest digital media company ever. This is the Square-Enix of the internet. What do you guys think of this?
Personally, being a user of software from both Adobe and Macromedia, I can only see good coming from this. With this buyout, I can see alot more possibilities opening up in the creative process and workflow of the top-end web designers/developers. What sucks is this is merely speculation. I just hope it doesn't suffer from the mediocrity that Square-Enix's merger caused. Thank goodness it's two entirely different industries.
Discuss.

[Xaenn]

I just read about this two seconds ago. I just had to laugh at myself. The lot of them make two of my most hated programs, Acrobat and Flash...

I'm sure they'll conjure up plenty of other wonderful concoctions working together.

[GODJonez]

That might result in PDF documents that have interactive Flash animations in them made with Photoshop's tools

I can only hope that new products won't become too bloated with options and too difficult for normal users.

[GundamGuy]

I can only hope that new products won't become too bloated with options and too difficult for normal users.

They already were...


I guess this could be a good thing.

[GODJonez]

They already were...

Well, yes. But not any more compicated...

[brit]

That might result in PDF documents that have interactive Flash animations in them made with Photoshop's tools

I can only hope that new products won't become too bloated with options and too difficult for normal users.

Actually, the ones that were bundled with a bunch of nonsense features were the Macromedia products. Adobe kept it's software down to stuff that you can actually USE productively. I highly doubt that the products themselves will change too much besides features that are added in. I'm dead sure that PhotoshopCS will remain PhotoshopCS and FlashMX 2005 will be FlashMX 2005 when it comes out. But they will be more integrated and interoperable, akin to Adobe's Creative Suite and Macromedia's StudioMX. It will all be part of some amazingly powerful suite of software. Hopefully the software that MM brings over will be cleaned up and refined to be useful and not so damn cluttered.

And PDFs with embedded Flash is completely absurd. PDF is a print format. I dare you to try to print an animation.

[Skinner8]

Monopolies aren't good things, though, and this is getting awfully close to one...

[brit]

Monopolies aren't good things, though, and this is getting awfully close to one...

So true. It isn't quite there yet, but if Adobe decides to purchase Jasc somewhere down the line, yes this will be able to be considered a full on monoply. Jasc's PaintShop Pro is, at this current moment, Photoshop's only commercial competitor. A purchase of that company's controlling stock is possible as Adobe is definately the larger company, but it would not be profitable in the long run, seeing how the EU and others got rid of Microsoft's Media Player monopoly. Just a few examples.

[kohlrak]

Sounds like a monopoly in the makin' to me. lol

[Josh]

Ok. This doesn't seem like a monopoly yet, but if it continues it very likely could be. To me it looks like Adobe is trying to control all the major information formats on the internet. By this I mean ways basic info is transmitted. You have pictures, PDF files, and flash presentations (also good for games). It wouldn't half surprise me if they didn't try to make new audio and video compression schemes, but I don't see that in the near future.

On a basic business sense monopolies are bad, for consumers, but the governments regulation of monopolies is also another reason why the US is pretty behind the rest of the world on broadband internet and such and why we are just now starting to catch up.

You have your phone companies where you can physicly only have one per area. The FCC treated this as a monopoly in that area. They made regulations that allowed fake phone companies to come in to "compete" with the phone companies. This "competition" used the main phone company's network, equipment, everything. The laws required the main phone company to sell lines to the "competition" phone company usually at below operating cost.
During this time companies like Bellsouth were just starting to deploy their ADSL. During this time the equipment to start the ADSL serveice in an area was very expensive. If the main company deployed new lines in an area their "competitors" could lease lines from them at below operating cost. This was too much of a risk so it was only deployed in large metropolitan areas. This slowed the US down on being as big in broadband. You had your cable companies, but since their only competitor was Dial-Up they didn't have to make their internet as fast.

Back on subject: While I do beleive this could possibly get close to monopoly status in the future if the trend continues, right now this is good. It can help combine and bring new technologies to the consumer.

[Xaenn]

Adobe kept it's software down to stuff that you can actually USE productively.

Err, use Acrobat Reader and then use gsview. Gsview isn't quite as nice looking, but the fact it takes a tiny fraction of the load time that Acrobat Reader does, makes it invaluable.

[brit]

Err, use Acrobat Reader and then use gsview. Gsview isn't quite as nice looking, but the fact it takes a tiny fraction of the load time that Acrobat Reader does, makes it invaluable.

Oh that is a confirmed truth. Almost all of the *nix software loads faster than any Windows counterpart. But the point I was making is that Macromedia software is far heavier than the Adobe products, even thought those are resource heavy as well.

[Xaenn]

Oh that is a confirmed truth. Almost all of the *nix software loads faster than any Windows counterpart. But the point I was making is that Macromedia software is far heavier than the Adobe products, even thought those are resource heavy as well.

Heheh. Fortunately gsview is also available on windows.

I haven't really used anything Macromedia other than flash, so you're probably right.

[Chaos]

They already were...

True. Just look at the Flash MX pdf files, they contain tons of pages of how the program works.

But I think this is a good thing.

[folo4]

suuuure.....

more expensive flash products follow to cover the costs of buying macromedia and for profit...