Why Did Adobe Buy Macromedia? 563
option8 writes "According to John Dvorak the reasoning behind Adobe's recent (and to many, surprising) purchase of Macromedia for $3.4 billion is that Adobe was afraid Microsoft was going to do it first. An interesting look at the thinking and attitude of Adobe from someone who's been following them for a long time. From TFA: "So, mostly out of fear, Adobe buys its main competitor and now must shoehorn the company into its unfortunate not-invented-here corporate culture. (This aspect of Adobe is another story in itself.)""
Does this mean that flash will full of DRM? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Just a Rant (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft has enough monopoly issues [mithuro.com] of its own to worry about without buying the company that makes Flash.
The author makes a number of assertions without justifying them.
Next
Money (Score:1, Insightful)
Consolidation, nothing more (Score:5, Insightful)
According to John Dvorak? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would trust a random guy on slashdot much more than I'd trust Dvorak's insights...
Dvorak is a stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just a Rant (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, that includes me.
John Dvorak (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's afraid of the big bad MS boogie man? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft have proven themselves to be a fierce competitor. If they decided to move into image manipulation software, then Adobe would (and should) be frightened. That's because Microsoft doesn't try to compete: it tries to monopolise. That's their whole culture: paranoia that they might become second in the market and thus have their business die. So they act like an 800 pound gorilla and attempt (many times succeeding) to pulverise and totally destroy their competition. And despite the anti-trust trial, they haven't really changed their business tactics.
What a twit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why did Adobe buy Macromedia? Adobe's products are too dead-tree oriented. Their best-known online technology, Acrobot, just displays an page image on your screen -- a totally outdated approach to online publishing. Macromedia has a lot of expertise they need and don't have. Dvorak, being totally ignorant of the very technology he pretends to cover, doesn't seem to know that.
Re:Just a Rant (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I get the idea from your message that you think the article speculates that Microsoft is talking about buying Flash. If so, you rather completely missed the point, in multiple ways, and your accusation of failing to justify non-existant assertions reflects poorly on you, not Dvorak.
Your message is so muddled that I can't make out what is being marked Insightful by the mods (which itself says it probably isn't terribly insightful) seeing as how there's no word about Microsoft planning purchasing Macromedia, unless it is the Slashthink Dvorak bashing getting the mod. In that case, I'd say sure, Dvorak has a crappy track record when it comes to predicting the future, but his explanation of this move makes as much sense as anything else I've seen; I've yet to see a coherent reason for this purchase, and I've seen several intelligent and informed people express confusion.
(Another possibility is that you somehow think that because you think that Microsoft can't possibly be interested in Macromedia, that Adobe can't possibly think that either, and that's not Insightful, that's just plain idiotic. Regardless, I can't find the "Insightful".)
Re:MS Paint (Score:4, Insightful)
Not going to happen soon.
Re:Why not? (Score:2, Insightful)
When you go to school to study, say, software engineering, do you rely on text books and work from expert who have already accomplished a fair amount in the field, or do you decide to allocate 10 years of your life to re-thinking everything that has been already done?
Acquisitions and mergers are good from an innovation point of view as well. They give developers (within the company as well as without) new opportunities to truly innovate new features and products, based on a combined feature set. So instead of complaining about companies buying everything in sight, why don't you sit down and have a think about what opportunities the combination of PDF and Flash could bring, and what YOU can innovate?
--KN
Re:MS Paint (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has also been trying to keep the "run hungry, everyone else is after you" mentality for a number of years...although I think the beancounters and frustrated managers are starting to take over.
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Insightful)
How? Microsoft and Adobe are not competitors. They offer products that are completely different. The only real competition at all is between Cold Fusion and ASP, but that's a brand new development and really is a non-issue.
Unless Adobe is going into operating systems and office software or Microsoft is going into graphics design the two companies have pretty close to zero overlap.
It's Dvorak, thus crap. (Score:4, Insightful)
To me, he's always seemed to just strike the most provocative opinion he can, presumably just to draw readership.
Dvorak is full of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MS Paint (Score:5, Insightful)
What if Microsoft did try to directly compete with Adobe? They WOULD be successful despite their product's quality, they have a massive market grip on the entire software field.
Microsoft does not make amazing software that does things nobody else can. Microsoft provides a massive sales push for any product they decide to develop, which usually is similar to another existing piece of software.
Look at Office vs Wordperfect, Excel vs Lotus, etc.
So, I disagree with Dvorak. You do need to worry about Microsoft, no matter where you are in the software field, if you are a large (read multi billion dollar) company
magazines love Dvorak (Score:4, Insightful)
John Dvorak is by far the most sucessful troll in the computing industry, and is a gold mine for advertizer revenue.
Re:Just a Rant (Score:3, Insightful)
Quoting Dvorak on Slashdot should be like quoting Fox News at a DNC meeting - shouldn't hold any water
Re:Because only by joining forces (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if it's not Flash in PDF, they still do control the two most common proprietary formats on the web. They've been pushing SVG, but they will have stiff competition from XAML. Using an established platform like Flash can at least give them a head start when that battle comes (which they're already foreseeing according to Dvorak's article).
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been thinking, wouldn't Avalon be competing with Flash and possibly Shockwave?
From the Avalon homepage [microsoft.com]: "Avalon provides the foundation for building applications and high fidelity experiences, blending together application UI, documents, and media content, while exploiting the full power of your computer."
Perhaps Adobe wanted Flash for integration with its products, and though Microsoft might be interested in it because of Avalon?
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Insightful)
No it wouldn't. While such a thing would mean that MSFT would be acknowledging that open source has a legitimate place, they could still argue against Linux's TCO. In other words, this would mean that yes they would have to stop attacking open source in general, but that doesn't stop them from claiming that Linux specifically has poor TCO.
Re:Yes I RTFA, if you can call it that. (Score:1, Insightful)
That being said, Adobe Illustrator has long been antiquated for the simple reason that if you are going to be involved in desktop publishing, you'd think you'd also be able to somehow do web development all in one. If there were to be such a merge of features from Illustrator and Dreamweaver, one could design an entire site in Illustrator, using Photoshop graphics and export it directly into an HTML package seemlessly. The idea of exporting a webpage made in Photoshop will also probably happen, but since Illustrator is already vector-based and in some ways pre-suited for web use, it has the most capability in this case.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-Trust. So Microsoft would get PostScript and PDF, the main defenses against
Microsoft buying Adobe would be a dark day for the Internet.
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Insightful)
Every company I know saves back to ACAD 2000 so as to have a stable base. 3D is not the panacea that it is made out to be.
Based on my experience, it's really cool to be able to zoom around (very impressive!) inside a model. However, as an old fart designer that runs these nifty 3D visualization programs I have to say that they actually hinder the design process. Why?
Designers need time to focus and giving everyone and their dog the ability to follow progress results in pointless emails asking why things haven't been finished yet. Of course, all these inquiries come from each project manager, project engineer, project specialist, purchaser and janitor. This interrupts the design workflow and slows everything down before anything is really ready to be presented. In the "old days", drawings were hard to interpret, so everyone would wait until there was some sort of finished product to comment on. Maybe an analogy would be hiring a contractor to build a house for you, but you keep showing up every day asking how the finishing on the oak door trimmings is going while he's still framing.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:MS Paint (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Could Apple follow suit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple has established a track record in recent years of taking pretty decent third-party applications that were not succeeding in the market, buying them, sinking tons of capital into them, and making them industry leaders. We did it with Final Cut Pro. We basically did it with Shake as of the newly released version 4.
If we found a third-party product that does a lot of what InDesign does, bought it, and perfected it, would Adobe have a problem on their hands? Bet your ass they would.
(There are no such plans to do that right now. But that sort of thing can change on a whim around here.)
This had nothing to do with their acquisition of Macromedia, I'm sure, but it most certainly did have a lot to do with their very friendly attitude toward us over the past year. Ever since we first showed them Spotlight last spring and Core Image in the summer of 2003, they've been very attentive to us. I'm told that CS 2 reflects a lot of that
Re:Actually, Microsoft should be worried (Score:3, Insightful)
Web applications work pretty well for ordering pizza. For anything more complicated, they suck. PDF (which has nothing to do with the Web at all) and Flash won't change that.
Re:Microsoft buy Macromedia? Don't be stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue with
So, to put it simply, Microsoft had no reason to buy Macromedia.
Paranoia and eliminating or neutering compeitition are reasons. Your post made the point that Macromedia really does go toe-to-toe with MS for web development.
Fortunately for Microsoft, Macromedia never made a full-fledged developer tools push and Adobe is even less likely to do so.
Re:Actually, Microsoft should be worried (Score:2, Insightful)
Others have tried that sort of thing before... I'm not sure it would work out any better for Adobe.
Re:MS Paint (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mac OSX Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO, Microsoft's name doesn't factor into this. I think Adobe was more concered with Apple. At NAB, all of the buzz surrounds Apple and Final Cut. While there may not have been any imminent Apple buyout of Macromedia, there is the concern at to what Apple's next move will be.
Microsoft already has some giant brains that know about everything there is to know about making paint programs. They do not need to buy Macromedia for that. (look up the name Alvy Ray Smith and Jim Blinn)
Apple is making a lot of people nervous. I see Avid's purchase of Pinnacle Systems as part of the wake of Apple's move into video editing and effects compositing.
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft can't possibly let someone have a lead in web technology.
Re:MS Paint (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because MS wants the DOC-format to be standard, _not_ PDF. If PDF becomes the standard for reports, resumes, theses etc. Then MS Office will become less important ==> Less used ==> Less bought.
> close to zero overlap.
You're nowhere near to the truth!
Re:MS Paint (Score:5, Insightful)
The browser wars wernt about the browser, they were about the file formats, and Microsoft lost. HTML rules the web, and MS Docs on the web are a sign of corporate incompetance.
But now look. see how many PDFs there are out there. Eventually corporations will start working in PDF directly, rather than farming out the PDFication of data to a specialist department. They will start liscencing Framemaker to all its staff. When that happens, MS Office starts to become duplicated functionality and will ose market share.
So thats why Adobe and MS are in competion, they both want to be the De-facto web publication format.
Re:MS Paint (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MS Paint (Score:4, Insightful)
In the UK the product has failed to hit the top 10 at all. Adobe, meanwhile, has overtaken their REAL arch rival in consumer software, JASC and Paint Shop Pro, because they put an easy user interface on a power peice of software, rather than JASC putting a ridiculously complex user interface on a ridiculously complex paint package.
Microsoft instead chose to put a simple user interface on an extremely basic software package and then charge the same money as Adobe was for Photoshop Elements. I was at a the press unveling of Digital Image 10 and put this to them "How do you expect this to sell when Photoshop Elements 3.0 is out on Monday for the same price?". Microsoft product manager said "Oh, is it?"
It's actually embarassing to see how badly Microsoft's consumer photo/paint software is doing. So you're all kinds of wrong on this issue I'm afraid.
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Insightful)
How? Microsoft and Adobe are not competitors. They offer products that are completely different. The only real competition at all is between Cold Fusion and ASP, but that's a brand new development and really is a non-issue. Unless Adobe is going into operating systems and office software or Microsoft is going into graphics design the two companies have pretty close to zero overlap.
It is entirely likely that MS will go into graphics design, layout, publishing, and vector graphics at some point. They already have a number of (horrible) offerings like Publisher. The entire MS business model depends upon constant growth, so they constantly have to move into new areas and leverage their monopoly to kill the existing players.
Aside from that, Adobe threatens MS with several things that currently exist or could be implemented. First, Mac OS support keeps MS from dominating the graphics and publishing markets and provides a good stream of revenue to MS's competitor. Next Linux support for Adobe products would be a huge affirmation of the viability of Linux for the corporate world. Third, HTML from Adobe is still HTML not the pseudo HTML spewed out by frontpage. This is a thorn in MS's side and helps thwart its attempt to hijack the web. Fourth, PDF and several other adobe sponsored open standards threaten MS's lock-in using proprietary formats. These are all reasons for MS to buy Adobe and remove the threat they pose.
what does MM have that MS wants? (Score:2, Insightful)
PDF is the standard for printable documents (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus there are many different standalone PDF readers out there for MS-Windows, Linux, OS X, and so on. MS-Word doesn't have a standalone reader except on ... MS-Windows. And if you already have MS-Windows, MS-Office is probably already on the machine.
PDF's can even embed metadata, which is a great bonus for locally searching your collection. e.g. Finding all documents of a particular author, or in a particular project, or about a particular topic.
The big drawback to PDFs is that it is not practical to re-edit them. But then that's not what they're for. They're essentially paper that hasn't come out of the printer yet.
For editable documents, the industry looks to be moving towards OpenDocument [groklaw.net], which is a vendor-neutral, open, royalty-free, XML-based file format being shaped up by OASIS. All the big (and many of the small) international names in electronic publishing are members in OASIS [oasis-open.org]. OpenDocument is being supported and encouraged by the EU as well and will be the main format for OpenOffice.org [openoffice.org], StarOffice, AbiWord, Kword, and others. Google already indexes it.
Re:Actually, Microsoft should be worried-AGREED (Score:2, Insightful)
With Flash, most people just look at the annoying ads--but that is the annoyance of advertising. Flash is a tool to engage and annoy. But it is also the best tool for the web.
Other than the various specialty and video/graphic plugins on browsers, really 90% of what you need to display specialized content is contained in Flash and Acrobat. If you combined all the best of both, the browser becomes merely a container for the Media file. Flash remoting and other tech allows stand-alone apps that don't even need the browser. The browser is useful to take you to content--but really sucks (as far as the non-standard standards and poor object models it uses) in actually displaying content. You can just look at all the download and browser accelerators out their to realize how there is a lot of room for improvement on how browsers packet and deliver information to users.
Flash has better compression and PDFs are much easier to create than decent HTML-based web pages. The only true downside to PDF+Flash that I can see is reorganizing content to fill the screen (a programming issue--but doable for some). So, just as JAVA was a threat until Microsoft polluted it, the upcoming Flash+PDF platform can make the browser obsolete. Once banks realize that they could create user content that was more secure, faster to download (you can store and share library elements and build whole interfaces and graphics out of code), and easier to debug, then they will quit depending on buggy HTML and web-based code and just do it all in Flash.
Of course, the inertia of human habits is usually the strongest factor in human decision making. As all the Slashdot geeks know, what really separates Geek from non-Geek is all about a fear of learning new things. The Acrobat PDF standard, however, is pretty well embraced by the business community. Allowing geeks to enhance PDF files without interfering or confusing non-geeks might be the magic ticket for adoption. I definitely think Adobe must have thought long and hard about human factors. Flash Paper would improve compression in Acrobat files. I could also see separate Libraries for content and code to enhance acrobat on client-side solutions. Especially with sites a user will visit more than once.
But watch Microsoft as they buy up similar companies and perhaps dependent technologies (Like Sorenson) to hedge this threat. They've been wanting to create their own TCP-IP protocol for years -- claiming that it was the real issue with web security rather than ActiveX+VBscript. I wouldn't be surprised if they use a third party company to bring a monopoly lawsuit. Not that they might not have a case, but just the pile of hypocrisy that would entail boggles the mind.
Personally, I hope that Adobe sells off FreeHand, Fontographer, and the Adobe version of Flash (forget the name) so that this marketplace still sees competition.