Adobe-Macromedia deal inches to a close

Oh man, Landrew you are so right, it would be FlashEffects! The thought of that gets me all excited at seeing how productive those tools for web to HD would be.

Because Aldus had its roots here in Seattle, for some reason Seattle has tried to hang on to the old Freehand and PageMaker strategy for design. All I can say is that's SO 1996. Not that Quark is that much better. But the standards used in Illustrator are SO much more compatible then Freehand. Freehand's proprietary "raster effects" never export properly, their gradients are atrocious, and I have never had a proof of a Freehand file come back with spot-on matching PMS colors like most of my Illustrator files. I just hope Adobe drops Freehand completely, though add full-fledged support for Freehand docs in Illustrator CS3. Since Dreamweaver has such a strong hold on the internet market, I think they'll take the best elements of Dreamweaver and GoLive and combine them into a new built from the ground up program keeping the Dreamweaver name. I just hope they have smart-objects in the new Dreamweaver. And I would LOVE to see what Adobe does with Flash. Flash is a great program but it's interface is SO tedious. And how many people like Flash MX 2004? Everyone I know still uses Flash MX. Anyway, I am very hopeful this merger will be a great one for the creative professional.

it wouldn't be PhotoFlash... it would be FlashEffects.

freehand + illustrator = frustrator ;-)

Better SWF in Image Ready will probably be almost immediate. (they already support it now...)

I recently picked up a copy of Macromedia Studio 8, Freehand is already missing. The package is exclusively web tools. My hunch is that Adobe will maintain two distince design suites: one optimized for print and one optimized for web. I wouldn't be surprised if GoLive is left out of the next iteration of CS (just as Freehand is gone from Studio) to make the split a clean one. Naturally many of us will want both, but there are many circumstances where one or the other will suffice.

At least if they do away with any Macromedia apps, the current ones should work great for at least a few years.

Ad #7: Of course, it's because us smart, clever, and imaginative CI consultants are just waiting for TUAW to make a post so we can comment with smart, clever, and imaginative brand name suggestions. Of course they will be picked from blog comments, duh! Where did you think brand names come from? Seriously, ain't no bubble for you to bust. Sowwy.

I'd personally prefer Illustrator to go lie in a drive, and Freehand rock on. I find Freehand's interface FAR FAR FAR easier to use than Illustrator's. Using Illustrator makes me cry even more than using Quark. That says a lot. On a completely different note. Why is it whenever mergers are talked of, everyone drags out lame ways of combing names? Macrobe and AdobeMedia and the ilk are neither imaginative, clever, or have the slightest chance of being used. The company will remain "Adobe". Dreamweaver will remain "Dreamweaver" - not "DreamLive". So on and so on.

"Macrobe", anyone?