Filed under: Software
Adobe scores Macromedia for 3.4 Billion
It must be nice to be able to drop 3.4 billion before breakfast.In a morning stunner, Adobe announced that it will be acquiring Macromedia in an all-stock transaction, a move which bumped shares of Macromedia up more than 8 percent in early trading, while Adobe shares sank 11 percent.
There is no word yet on which programs will continue to be supported and/or which programs will be killed but both companies say they are still "planning out the integration with the hope to utilize the best business and product development practices from each other." Unfortunately, odds are that we, the customers, won't have too much say in that.
I know quite a few Freehand loyalists who will be paying close attention to this, not to mention more than a few Dreamweaver fans (like myself) who cringe at the thought of using GoLive - unless the best of both worlds are combined, which never seems to happen in cases like these.
What's your general feeling about this merger? Do you think they'll change the name of the combined company to something unoriginal like AdobeMedia?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
iwearblack said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
this is bad news. it was nice having two heavyweights making macintosh graphics software. adobe's macintosh interest doesn't seem as high as it's been and if they decided to do something stupid, who are we going to look to? corel, gimp, ...? are they going to buy quark now?
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Laurie said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Adobe buying Quark would be a /good/ thing IMHO. Never going to happen, though.
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bryan Webster said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
what is my initial reaction? i would say SHOCK!!
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n said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
I hope they take the best of apps... Drop Go Live, kill Freehand and Fireworks.... Life will be good.
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Visual Snack said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
As one of the aforementioned FreeHand users, I too wonder what will happen now that Macrodobe's product offerings now contain many redundant applications.
That being said, as a designer, I haven't really used many (if any) new features that either Adobe or Macromedia have put out in the past few years. So, while I'm okay with my current toolkit, I'm interested to see how their two libraries will mesh and what will fall to the wayside.
Either way, Adobe has always put out a quality, rock-solid product. Here's hoping that doesn't change.
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Scott McNulty said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
I just hope they don't mess with ColdFusion or Dreamweaver (those are the only two products from either company I use on a regular basis).
As for the name, I'm betting they will just call the company 'Adobe,' since they bought Macromedia and all.
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font9a said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Maybe Illustrator will **finally** get the multi-page document support Freehand has always had.
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schleifnet said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
this totally sux!
take adobe and have them buy and eat macromedia and you end up with the only reasonably priced web software gain huge in cost and little else, the worst they can do here is raise the price of studio and add the horrid golive style files to dreamweaver, the best they can do is add pdf integration to so really awesome apps and some better vector handling to adobe products
mostly though i'd worry about adout raising prices so high they force their users to leave
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Sam said 6:23PM on 10-01-2005
The name is going to remain Adobe Software, Inc.
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Don O'Shea said 1:50PM on 8-15-2005
Well, there goes the neighborhood!
Having kept up with the "improvements" in Illustrator over the years and have tried to convince myself to use Illustrator, since I use Photoshop regularly.
I have the latest Illustrator CS. Any project I choose to use it on, it takes only about 10 minutes to get to the point where I bail out and go back to Freehand MX. I have found that Illustrator still doesn't approach the precision and flexibility of Freehand. Guess which one will be killed once the Adobe/Macromedia merger is concluded?
Not holding my breath,
Don
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John Watson said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
This is BAD news for us users! Eliminating competition between the only two heavyweight web design applications for Mac (GoLive and Dreamweaver) will inevitably result in less progressive future products. Effectively Adobe will have a monopoly in the sector and (like Microsoft) no real incentive to excel.
And God help us if we have to migrate to the awful GoLive.
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Ed Fladung said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
I'm thinking it's not such a bad move for either company. sure there are rough edges (illustrator vs. freehand, dreamweaver vs. golive) but Adobe stands to gain ten-fold by Macromedia's dominance in the web space (not to mention better app marketing) and a smooth transition will bring Adobe back into the good graces of developers (the Macromedia guys will really have to keep the lines of communication open with developers to make this work). Adobe really excels at several other areas of content creation and now that Macromedia will be integrated, Adobe will excel in the web space. The real problem is that Adobe's only real competition will be Apple. and can these two co-exist peacefully. Or will Apple have to go and by Adobe, but that will never happen, like Adobe buying Macromedia =)
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Michael said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
My 2 cents -- really concerned that academic buyers looking to learn on inexpensive software will find themselves paying more for "Macrodobia" studios than they did for "Macromedia" stuff. Also NOT looking forward to the prospect of Macromedia titles getting upgrades piecemeal like Adobe does with its products.
When I buy a new version of Macromedia studio, I get ALL NEW SOFTWARE. With Adobe, I'll sometimes get all new software, but often I'll get minor updated software with one title getting a major overhaul (if at all). Then, 2 weeks later, Adobe will start introducing an update to this part of the studio or that. The upgrade prices get ridiculous (or, if buying academic, you have to buy all over again).
Not happy about this buyout at all.
IronChefMorimoto
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C.K. Sample, III said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
Remember when Adobe bought Aldus Pagemaker?
Anyway, I think it's interesting that Apple comes out with all their high-end video / motion apps, and the rest of the market starts to merge like this. It's hard to believe that Quark is still kicking around. If Apple comes out with a pro version of Pages, I think that will change and we'll be left in a world where 99% of the graphics and page layout market is split between Adobe on the PC and Apple on the Mac. Just a thought...
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James Cummings said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
This sounds bad as in fewer companies competing for the same group of users.
As for the Adobe/Macromedia wars as to which company is better, well who knows. I saw one post that said they get "all" new software with new releases of Macromedia Studio. I wasn't always so. In fact, I believe it was the first edition of "Studio" that Macromedia had just introduced a new version of Flash, then followed it 3-4 weeks later with the Studio containing the Dreamweaver/Flash/Freehand/Fireworks combination. There was such a howl from the users, Macromedia gave a discount for users who had already bought the new version of Flash if they wanted the Studio. In that regard they did the "right thing".
My only beef with Macromedia has to do with users who are/were switching from PCs to Macs. I requested an upgrade for Dreamweaver, but requested it for the new Mac instead of for the old PC platform. I was initially told that I would have to buy the full product that an upgrade was not allowed....that is until I threatened to use the Adobe equivalent, because Adobe was quite happy to let me send in the PC versions and send out the Mac versions of software I had already purchased (i.e. Photoshop).
Obviously, there will probably be some programs that will bite the dust. Illustrator vs. Freehand (personally my vote is for Illustrator); Photoshop/ImageReady vs Fireworks, I'd have to bet on Photoshop/ImageReady...Flash? probably safe; ColdFusion? probably safe. All those of us who used to love ColdFusion Studio raise your hand and tell everyone what happened to that program when Macromedia bought Allaire. My guess is Dreamweaver and GoLive will morph into something that will eventually get a following, even though most of us won't like it. At least there are still good text editors out there...
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Tony said 6:45PM on 8-28-2005
I use flash all the time and I really hope that adobe doesn't try to change or replace it. I also think that they should keep most of the rest of macromedia's software the same (like dreamweaver and director), and not try change the way you use them to match adobe's other products.
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Brian said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
My bet is they sunset Cold Fusion over a period. Maybe even sell that piece off. Maybe morph it into more of a media server, pdf, flash, etc.
Charging 10k for an enterprise level solution when .net is free, php use is growing, etc etc.
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igav said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
I just can't see that it's a good thing as it can only stifle competition and shouldn't really be allowed by the regulators.
Whatever happens, one can guarantee that the products won't carry on as they are which is a great shame as both sets of products have their adherents and their uses.
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Stantastic said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
To me this merger is like the merger of snowboarders and skiiers. Graphic Designers and web designers are different beasts. This can only mean menial products for both graphic and web designers. Maybe google will come out with a product for web designers. They already bought blogger.
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Aaron Garn said 4:17PM on 6-16-2005
I don't know what cave i was in when this news came out but let me say ... OMG!
This is insanity. I'm typically an optimist and love to see a good shake-up but this ... this is too much. I love both companies and use many of their products, even together on the same projects, but I think this can only spell disaster. What possible good can come from it? I'll hope for the best but I too am not going to hold my breath.
Maybe this is an opertune time to start a new company that's lean nimble and can compete at a lower cost. Slowly growing customer support until it has become a true market force. Then sell to Adobe for 3.5 billion ...
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