Adobe to acquire Macromedia

Surely Adobe won't raise their prices even higher?!

If you ask me, Adobe already killed quark, it's just a matter of time till the rest of the businesses finally admit it and adopt it. But wow, macromedia? Thats a surprise, for some reason I don't like the sound of this really. It just gives me reason to worry that 3 of my most used proggies might get messed up. Although, Macromedia from what I've seen/heard/whatever didn't create flash or director, they bought those companies. I wish Macromedia would pass on this deal.

I wouldn't expect prices to rise, but what might be compromized by the merger?
God knows I love products from both companies, but I'd hate to see stuff like freehand and illustrator, or dreamweaver and go live just smashed together. I use freehand, flash, dreamweaver, photoshop, and illustrator extensively, but I always liked them for different reasons. This seems like weird timing to me anyway with Creative Suite 2 coming out next month. Off the topic Dicreet changed their name to Autodesk Media and Entertainment, which also for some reason bugs me.

I just hope I end up liking the results of this later.
I always liked macromedia's work a little better anyway, save for photoshop.

I guess one things for sure, we'll probably be needing a few less icon sets now.

Yeah, you can bet Adobe is going to jack the prices up now too. I really liked Macromedia too...

I think alot of this merger has to do with the up-coming release of a few different Microsoft products, one would compete with pdf, the other with flash. It worries them because they know MS will but their pdf like product into office which makes sure everyone is exposed to it. There version of flash on the other hand, its rumoured to make creating XAML (what its called) easier then flash by automating large portions of it. Shall be interesting to see where this goes.

If you ask me, Adobe already killed quark, it's just a matter of time till the rest of the businesses finally admit it and adopt it.

Never! I'm still addicted to Quark... Although InDesign is gaining market rapidly. Especially advertising agencies seem to like it. I do like to do layouts in InDesign because of the integration with Illustrator and Photoshop, but I hate working with typography in it. Possibly because I've used Quark for a long time

Great. Now flash will take 10 hours to load, just like PDF in browser.

Great. Now flash will take 10 hours to load, just like PDF in browser.

Same Comments

Great. Now flash will take 10 hours to load, just like PDF in browser.

Agree

It was a...shockin news...I think nobody saw that coming

I can't believe this. First, Macromedia takes Fireworks from Adobe, now Adobe is taking everything from Macromedia. You can count on support to suck ass. This is really bad!!!

Most of the stuff with Quark I find to be easier, or perhaps I should say, seems to take less steps to do in InDesign. My professor that taught Quark was really boring too though, so maybe I can blame him for my not liking it. Before InDesign though, it was no contest at all. After fighting to hell with freehand and illustrator, then seeing how easy it was to layout an entire book or magazine in Quark I was like "YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I WENT THROUGH ALL THAT CRAP FOR NOTHING?!"

*side note, I'm off topic. whoops*

I think alot of this merger has to do with the up-coming release of a few different Microsoft products, one would compete with pdf, the other with flash. It worries them because they know MS will but their pdf like product into office which makes sure everyone is exposed to it. There version of flash on the other hand, its rumoured to make creating XAML (what its called) easier then flash by automating large portions of it. Shall be interesting to see where this goes.

The only competition that might come from MS is the up and coming Office 12, though it is not slated to be seen until Q3 2006; however, Macromedia has been for the forerunner in all other applications, and adobe with its Photoshop and Acrobat products - I don't think this has to anything to do with the Longhorn release: XAML is not a "Flash" technology and it will not replace Flash - if you want to know more about XAML read about it here: Link

I agree though it will certainly mean higher prices and a re-structuring of priorities. I would hate to see the quality of the Macromedia Products falter under this merger.... no, not happy about the merger at all.

I think there are things going on behind the scenes that we as consumers might really need to worry about..

Raymond

Heh, the teacher who taught me Quark used to point out all the things that Quark could do that InDesign couldn't. And the other way around too, but no doubt that she liked Quark better.

At work, we're doing a 1600 page thick book once a year for a large company. At first we used Quark, but changed to InDesign which has reduced the amount of time we spend on it. Mainly because of silly things like adding shadows under pictures that Quark really sucks at. The way we did it then was to make a grayscale image of the shadow and put that under the image in Quark and set the correct settings to make it work. In InDesign, stuff like that is a LOT easier

Off topic too...

Man... bad news, I think.
I hope if this happens that the Macromedia software will keep the same quality and not merge into their Adobe sub-standard equivalent (Flash vs Live Motion - Dreamweaver vs GoLive). On the other hand, I really like the Adobe user interface. If this happens, I hope they keep Macromedia staff of hatever made the Macromedia products so much better.

Transaction is complete...
Check out this link at Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050418/ap_on_bi_ge/adobe_macromedia

shit goddamnit... Adobe is getting all "microsoft-ish" swallowing all competition before they pose a threat to their large scale company.

I only have a five letter word for this: (this) S U C K S

I hope they don't get rid of Dreamweaver MX.

Sheesh, first it was Corel taking over Jasc (Paint Shop Pro), now Adobe taking over Macromedia....what a world, what a world!

I am very saddened to hear this. I'm a very big fan of Fireworks and will be very very dissappointed if it goes down the tubes.

Any merging of/killing off product lines etc will be a long way away. Adobe have just released CS2 and it will take years to recoup an acceptable ROI. Macromedia has not been as active in updates, but things like Flash/Dreamweaver are the industry leaders so it's hard to see them being killed. Maybe in a year or two there might be something happen in the Freehand/Illustrator area, but many things that could change before then.

-It's not going to happen but what I would like to see is a series of 'suites' where you could pick and choose products from either family.

-Cautiously optomistic-

By acquiring rival software maker Macromedia Inc....Adobe Systems Inc. is positioning itself to do battle with Microsoft Corp.

Couldn't just ask for help eh? Fight fire with another monopoly?

Am I the only one who sees this as a good thing? This could lead to better intergration between Photoshop, Premiere, Audition, Acrobat, Flash, Dreamweaver and Breaze. Also, this could be just the push SVG needs to become widely used. ColdFusion could benifit as well. I do hope that Adobe dosn't suck in all of Macromedia into its self, but rather keeps it as a sister/child company.

Well, if it's just a name change, than I wouldn't care.

But I doubt it. I am very afraid. Adobe applications have always been very good as far as their graphics related software were concerned, but they also royaly sucked for any coding related program. And that's where Macromedia was strong. Amazing programs that made coding a breeze, either in Flash or Dreamweaver.

I really hope they don't turn Flash into a useless "cool point and click but extremely inefficient" program like Live Motion is.

If this ends up like HP&Compaq story it will be disastrous to whole IT industry.

Can Adobe compensate 3.4 billion dollars?

wait..... Discreet is calling itself Autodesk what!!!????

Paint Shop...
Marcomedia...
Discreet (3D Studio Max)...

2006 is going to be interesting..

I am very sceptical about any mergers, but I can see where this might actually help developers. I personally use Macromedia's StudioMX and Adobe's Creative Studio on a daily basis. Having an option to have Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Flash all part of one package does sound somewhat intriguing; but I have always loved the support that Macromedia has had for their products.

So I think the verdict is... sceptically intrigued optimism. Let's just hope we don't have to call a new company AdoMedia, it just sounds wrong.

Yeah I hear, and to make it worse Gamespot is aquiring EBGames! dang....