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.)""
MS Paint (Score:5, Funny)
And what about Gimp? Is it really not a threat to Adobe at all?
It'll be fun to watch if Microsoft hinted that it's looking at forking Gimp, Adobe will go nuts about that!
Re:MS Paint (Score:2)
Re:MS Paint (Score:2)
Heh. Can they really buy GIMP?
Re:MS Paint (Score:5, Funny)
I thought he said "fuck", as in "Microsoft is going to fuck the gimp."
Re:MS Paint (Score:4, Insightful)
Not going to happen soon.
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.
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 integr
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:4, Interesting)
To be honest, as much as I dispise Microsoft, I would rather DOC files be the standard. I find most PDF's I need over the net to be bloated. Acrobat Reader is ploted as well. Also, what is this SUDDEN need for every frickin windows app to have a background app that makes the main app "load faster" liek Adobe Acrobat Reader 7. Has this EVER been proven yet? It's not like they are preloading the app into memory so it doesn't have to hit the disk to launch the app. The binary is usually different.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
FoxIt PDF Reader (Score:4, Interesting)
That fix is also described in MozillaZine [mozillazine.org].
An even better solution is to uninstall Adobe's Reader, and install FoxIt PDF Reader [foxitsoftware.com], which is free.
The download (zip) file [foxitsoftware.com] is less than 1 MegaByte, so it can be downloaded even over a slow dial-up connection. By comparison, the download for Adobe Reader is about 15 MB - 20 MB.
The entire installation for FoxIt PDF Reader takes up less than 2 MB of hard drive space. Adobe Reader takes up about 60 MB. I don't know what Adobe Reader used the other 58 MB for, but I don't miss it. FoxIt PDF Reader loads much faster.
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
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.
Frame and Word do not compete directly (Score:3, Interesting)
Word is for short, free format documents (memos, executive summaries, etc.). Do not attempt to use Word for long documents (200+ pages) or where consistent format across the document is important (in other words, the broken lists will screw things up). There are work-arounds for Word's long-document flaws, but most are more trouble than they're worth.
Frame is for book-length documents (200+ pages) where page layout and consistent formating ar
Re:You forgot the NIH Syndrome (Score:3, Interesting)
Wasn't Framemaker the basis for Indesign???
I wish. Framemaker is designed with technical books and manuals in mind and is by far the best tool for writing them. InDesign is 100% designed for making magazines which is obvious to anyone who has tried to use it for a book. Auto layouts are weak, auto numbering and versions are basically nonexistent in comparison, auto cross-references don't exist, conditional text is completely missing, style mappings within a document and from imports are buggy and unusa
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 alr
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: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.
Photoshop CS? (Score:3, Informative)
Photoshop Album is their cut down "consumer" variant, and rather more likely to be what you meant.
Wrong Again (Score:5, Informative)
Quite right (Score:3, Funny)
Whoops.
Re:Quite right (Score:3, Funny)
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, Interesting)
Paint Shop Pro is good, don't get me wrong. I use it exclusively (disclaimer: I am not an imaging professional)... but under no condition am I under the delusion that it has ever yet been as good or powerful as Photoshop.
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
Re:MS Paint (Score:5, Insightful)
Freehand (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Interesting)
I use the GIMP daily for basic editing and as much as it is pushed it really isn't up to snuff against PhotoShop for the breadth of tools and effects. I use it these days because I want to support Free tools and if I find myself away from home I want to know my tools are a simple download away without being a pirate or bugged by shareware nags.
That said Gimp 2.2 is MUCH improved. However, the multi windows is a real turn off for regular Windows users.
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Interesting)
I could see MS buying PaintShop Pro as an excuse to charge more.
Think they'd ever go after AutoCAD?
Lower-end CAD programs are slowly eating into the traditional markets (i.e., people getting fed up with Autodesk's ongoing expensive upgrades that offer less and less "functionality").
Not all architectural/engineering/construction firms can afford to keep up with "productivity-enhancing" software updates especially when what really counts is what you provide to the builder. 3D walk/flythroughs are nice an
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 thing
Re:MS Paint (Score:3, Insightful)
Because only by joining forces (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Because only by joining forces (Score:5, Interesting)
I was going to write my take on it but a blogger by the name of Jesse Ezell has already put it very nicely. Here's the text of his blog entry [asp.net]:
My Thoughts on the Adobe-Macromedia Deal
It is pretty clear from the acquisition that Adobe is going to be making a major push into web media. They have tried a few times with tools like InDesign and LiveMotion to make some progress, but Macromedia has been extremely successful at fending off their attacks with Dreamweaver and Flash. As a result, Adobe has been able to rule the desktop publishing market and Macromedia has been able to rule the web content market. The mix of the two companies is going to make one hell of a powerful media creation beast. Ok, but that is the obvious stuff. Obviously anyone who buys out Macromedia wants Flash, because Flash is what Macromedia is all about. What else might this mean?
If you look at Macromedia's actions over the past year or so, it seemed pretty likely that they were looking for a buyer. They were gradually buying up smaller companies to add to their arsenal and make themselves more attractive to potential buyers. Choosing eHelp and Presedia as acquisitions tells me that perhaps Adobe is interested in making some moves into the super hot eLearning market. Right now, all Adobe really has going for them is PDF--which is a pretty darn valueble assest, but is really more suited for the web of the past than the web of the future. PDF was great when web pages were static, but web pages aren't static anymore and PDFs are boring these days. The next generation web is all about media, and that is where Flash comes into the picture. eHelp and Presedia were two companies in the front of the eLearning pack, and the timing of these two acquisitions is just too close to mean nothing. However, this also means that eHelp / Presedia customers are in for even more fun as their products all get jumbled up in yet another acquisition. Even Macromedia didn't continue to support all of eHelp's products...
For designers, this acquisition is definately a good thing. They get the best of both worlds as Macromedia and Adobe tag team anyone who attempts to challenge them. Developers, on the other hand, may not have it so lucky. What is to become of Cold Fusion? What about Flex? One of my long-standing complaints about Macromedia is that they don't understand developers. Surely this isn't going to be helped by Macromedia merging with an even more designer centric company. I definately trust the management at Adobe a bit more than Macromedia's management, but you can't help but realize that Adobe really doesn't have a lot of experience with developer centric software. Personally, I would have much rather seen Microsoft acquire Macromedia and give us some kick-ass next generation web tools, but they are too focused on Avalon and XAML right now, so we'll have to leave that to the Xamlon guys or get everyone running Avalon so we can deliver the stuff natively.
In any case, one thing is certain, watching this play out is going to be very interesting.
[end]
--
Fairfax Underground: Fairfax County chat and discussion forums, with an underground twist [fairfaxunderground.com]
Re:Because only by joining forces (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand this at all. Every form I download from my state government is PDF, for example, often the handy fill-in type. That isn't boring, it's damn useful. Most useful documentation on the web is also distributed as PDF.
As for Flash, I don't even have it installed, right now. The advertisements were driving me bonkers!
Re:Because only by joining forces (Score:3, Informative)
Quote:
Flashblock [mozdev.org] is an extension for the Mozilla and Firefox browsers that takes a pessimistic approach to dealing with Macromedia Flash content on a webpage and blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves a placeholder on the page that allows you to click to view the Flash content.
I guess if you don't use Firefox, or don't like installing extensions, this might not work for you, but I've found
They needed a marketing jingle? (Score:5, Funny)
We bought a company out of fear and called in Macradobe!
I know that somebody can figure out more lyrics on this. It is 4/20 after all.
Re:They needed a marketing jingle? (Score:5, Funny)
Then mister Gates bought us both and told the gov to blow me!
Re:They needed a marketing jingle? (Score:3, Funny)
I know that somebody can figure out more lyrics on this. It is 4/20 after all.
The Ballad of Big Adobe. (Score:5, Funny)
Big Adobe went to town
Riding with great worry
"Microsoft might buy our foes
Goodness let us hurry"
Big Adobe, buy them out
Big Adobe dandy
Mind the lawsuits and the FUD
And with your cash be handy
Macromedia went to the web
With great Flash and vigour
Then Adobe said to them:
"We ownz you, start to quiver"
Big Adobe, buy them out
Get yourself a trophy
Buy a business out of fear
And call it Macradobe
All you geeks and all you nerds
Reading this here story
Remember what the Parent said
And call it Macradobe
Re:The Ballad of Big Adobe. (Score:3, Funny)
Feeling kind of bitter
Can't write epic poems like me
Let's just call him a quitter
Does this mean that flash will full of DRM? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Does this mean that flash will full of DRM? (Score:4, Funny)
Why on Earth would DRM in flash movies bother you?
Re:Does this mean that flash will full of DRM? (Score:2)
Re:Does this mean that flash will full of DRM? (Score:2)
Why on Earth would DRM in flash movies bother you?
Very good point! +1 Insightful and +1 Funny both.
Hmmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
Uh, right. "Why buy one when you can buy both at only twice the price!" That's the kind of smart business moves that made Microsoft a multi-billion dollar company.
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.
Consolidation, nothing more (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't entirely blame them. (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as I hate Adobe having a Monopoly, I'm not sure I'd like it more if they shared the market with Microsoft only to go the way of Corel in a few years.
Hmm. (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft could end up buying Adobe in the end if this merger doesn't work out as intended and profits/revenue fall because of management problems.
According to John Dvorak? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would trust a random guy on slashdot much more than I'd trust Dvorak's insights...
Re:According to John Dvorak? (Score:5, Funny)
Trust John Dvorak.
- Random Slashdot GuyRe:According to John Dvorak? (Score:5, Funny)
- Random Slashdot Guy
Re:According to John Dvorak? (Score:5, Funny)
GP: Trust no one
Re:According to John Dvorak? (Score:3, Funny)
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:magazines love Dvorak (Score:5, Interesting)
Good golly, do you not know your history (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe you'd like to know thing one before you create a fictive publishing history for the man based on what you want to believe?
Dvorak's famous original response to the introduction of the Mac in 1984 was that nobody had any proof that users would use a mouse, for chrissakes. So, you know, your "was a huge Mac fan" and "was largely correct in his analyses" statements were completely vitiated at the
Dvorak is a stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple... (Score:2, Interesting)
An Apple/Macromedia merger would make me feel a bit better about the future direction of Macromedia software. Too late now though.
Re:Apple... (Score:3, Interesting)
The truth is probably closer that Apple was after Macromedia. That's where Final Cut Pro comes from. If Apple were to get an image editing application they'd have another coup for Mac OS X (Apple is replacing both Adobe and Avid on the editing front).
John Dvorak (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:John Dvorak - lol, yes (Score:3, Interesting)
huh?
Could Apple follow suit? (Score:3, Interesting)
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, wou
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:What a twit. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think the article ever stated or implied that this was the case. Rather, it suggested that Microsoft's interest in web content creation (as evidenced by FrontPage, ASP.Net, and so on) compelled Adobe to buy Macromedia (Dreamweaver, ColdFusion, and so on) in order to outflank MS.
Why did Adobe buy Macromedia? Adobe's products are too dead-tree oriented.
True. However, he cor
Yeah, right. (Score:4, Interesting)
Empty ramblings. Assertion. No proof, no quotes, nothin'.
I know it's an opinion piece. It's still a waste of space.
Incidentally, the share price of MACR is now well above what it was before the takeover was announced, so his crap about the market "dropping" the stock is blatant nonsense.
Not invented here? (Score:3)
Er, are you sure about that? Adobe bought CoolEdit from Syntrillium and sold it as "Adobe Audition", no problem.
Why Did Adobe Buy Macromedia? (Score:3, Funny)
Why Did Adobe Buy Macromedia?
To get to the other side?
I'm sorry, but it's 420 day.
Fireworks???? (Score:2, Interesting)
Will Adobe put the same amount of effort into it as they do with photoshop??
I like photoshop, but everything I have learned I first did in fireworks & I feel more comfortable using it.
I hope Adobe won't force people across to photoshop to save a few bucks continuing to develop fireworks.
Macrodobe to make web browser (Score:2)
zerg (Score:2)
Honest.
Yes I RTFA, if you can call it that. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I see is that Adobe wanted to put flash in pdf and MacroM didn't want to license cheap. So Adobe bought MM to get Flash, and now I see the reverse: Acrobat Reader 8.0 implemented in flash with on-demand font-laguage and all that crap.
Also, PDF with flash becomes fully animated, media-rich format.
I think that dreamweaver will essentially become a photoshop add-on. This way, very smart graphic designers will make a beautiful graphic, click on the "Dream-Weave-it" button, and presto: A complete web page with rollovers from layers.
As far as the Macromedia people, they had best get ready to wear the Adobe hat or find themselves on the street.
What else. Flash. Yes, back to Flash. If I email you a PDF document, and now it's on your PC, and you open it, and flash is inbedded in it, and you're connected to the net via your ever-present dsl line, flash can actually go to the web and pull content. So Adobe Acrobat Reader has now become a web browser, since a well-designed flash can emulate a website.
Finally, I think Adobe is in decent shape, but they have to be careful, because while they had photoshop and acrobat, they were still essentially in a lucrative niche market. They have become a bigger fish, and they are going to find that they have a lot more competitors. And just perhaps they might find that the best macromedia people will start working elsewhere and competing too.
Was my post speculative enough for you?
Dvorak at his BEST... IDLE-TIME PROCESS (Score:5, Funny)
Yup, he really said that [pcmag.com]
OH SHIT... SYSTEM IDLE PROCESS is EATING 100% of my CPU !?!? Gotta run.
Re:Dvorak at his BEST... IDLE-TIME PROCESS (Score:4, Funny)
Mobile Web motivation (Score:3, Interesting)
Macromedia was gaining traction with selling Flash Lite players to mobile phone manufacturers. Adobe was competing by supporting an open standard, SVG with its mobile authoring tools.
Now Adobe eliminates this competitor by owning it.
But meanwhile, on phones, SVG is proliferating [svg.org].
SVG is an open standard, XML, scriptable, event-driven UI.
Will Macrodobe support an oepn standard mobile web?
Or will it want developers to pay $xxx for tools to author content for the mobile web using formats it owns and controls?
Re:Mobile Web motivation (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/devices/articl
Re:Mobile Web motivation (Score:3, Interesting)
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)
Microsoft buy Macromedia? Don't be stupid! (Score:5, Interesting)
* ColdFusion, Flex, Breeze, etc. - Server side scripting and application servers. Microsoft has IIS and their
* Flash and related client-side technologies - Microsoft is bringing out Avalon, a graphical engine for developing Internet applications without needing a web browser, so they don't need this.
* Dreamweaver and other editors - Microsoft focuses its development platform solely behind Visual Studio
So, to put it simply, Microsoft had no reason to buy Macromedia.
However, it is well known that Macromedia have had financial difficulties over the past few years. With many excellent technologies and applications they have IMHO suffered from a lack of focus and direction which has ultimately hit their bottom line. I do think that they would have been bought out sooner or later, either that or gone through some major internal reshuffling (and firings) to fix the situation - I guess we now know which they opted for.
Damien
Re:Microsoft buy Macromedia? Don't be stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue with
So, to put it simply, Microsoft had no
Actually, Microsoft should be worried (Score:5, Interesting)
To a company like Microsoft that's invested itself totally into a "Windows Everywhere" philosophy, that's gotta seem very ominous.
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.
Paranoid? Why not? (Score:5, Informative)
They also wanted to get into the non-portable consoles industry - traditionnaly owned and led by Japanese companies such as Nintendo, Sega and recently Sony. All other non-japanese companies failed to get into that market. Microsoft announces the Xbox. It costed them millions in terms of investments. In the beginning, they were loosing 100$ for each console they sold. So what? The objective was to make themselves a room in the market, not to make money. They already make money with Windows, Office and other things other companies now totally rely on. The result : Sega is now dead as a console manufacturer, Nintendo is no longer leading the market, and only Sony can really stand up against Microsoft.
So I guess my point is that, given the billions Microsoft can invest in any given project, they can do whatever they want. They could have offered Adobe's developpers 3 times what they were paid so they would come over. They even could have had them move to another country than the US, so the clauses in their contracts that (I imagine) prevent them to work in another company doing the same thing would be void (I assume here that the devs would be motivated only by cash and not loyalty, but it's not the point, really, because Adobe's developpers are not the only ones with that kind of skill; but they allow a better example). So I think that in the end Adobe made a good move, because they only made Microsoft's eventual objective harder to reach. But not impossible.
Macromedia + Adobe (Score:4, Interesting)
To finally get a real jump in the interactive world. Dreamweaver is the best WYSWIG editor out there and way better than Go-Live. Flash is definetly the web standard for vector based interactive on the web and kicks ass over SVG, which might be widely supported (if you down load the plug-in), but does not have a lot of support from web developers. Cold Fusion is just as solid as ASP, and can can be integrated easily to Flash using Flash Remoting.
Adobe will finally have a solid stake in the web world, which will now give them control over print AND interactive mediums. The only thing left for Adobe is to try and buy the Final Cut suite from Apple (of course that's not gonna happen).
I also read about people comparing Adobe to MS. What in the world are you thinking? There are other options out there! Adobe software just far outperforms all the others. It's not like they have a monoply on in the market then let their products go to shit (i.e. MS). Photoshop, illustrator and indesign all have had major competition in the past. Anyone remember that not long ago, Quark had a strangle hold on the desktop publishing market? And to you people who think Gimp holds a candle to Photoshop, need to wake the fuck up. I think open-source software is great, and Gimp is a solid program, but come on, if you really know what your doing, it is not even close.
Microsoft buys up good software, then either scraps it, or sells it with little to no improvements. Microsoft software sucks.
Adobe does a great job with their user interfaces, which is why Macromedia was using the same structure. In 2000, right before Flash 5 was released, Adobe won a lawsuit against Macromedia for infringing its patent: http://news.com.com/2100-1040-898061.html?tag=fd_
Either way, there are numerous reasons for Adobe to want to purchase Macromedia. There are also probably a lot of reasons why MS would want to own Macromedia, but who cares, they didn't, so why stir the pot with a BS story with with no proof?
HFS!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Then we all partied so Hearty that they called the cops on us.
Macromedia figured out that they would do better by leapfrogging Adobe, and jumping directly into webcentric software. To that end they basically killed off everything that wasn't web centric - xRes died a quick and merciful death, fontgrapher was shelved (and for this they earned incredibley bad karma, because fontLab is a fat POS with a crap UI - although it does rock for font output formats... it's just a world of pain for anyone trying to design anything...), and they killed off FreeHand a few years back and Director's got a tube up its nose.
They set about buying serverside stuff, like cold fusion, and developed various workflow systems for Dreamweaver, itself an acquisition, called FutureFlash.
I don't think this acquisition could have happened if MM had not killed off FreeHand and fontographer.
You can be QUITE certain that now that Adobe owns the codebase, FH and Fog are so completely dead as to be like, deader than dead.
This is a MAJOR acquisition. This is a MAJOR consolidation in the software market. It is not a time for rejoicing. Expect some very bad things.
Predictions:
Adobe will not sell FreeHand.
Adobe will not sell Fontographer.
Adobe will kill off Director within 3 years.
Adobe will "merge" GoLive and Dreamweaver, which will be good for GoLive and bad for Dreamweaver.
PDF will acquire flash-centric elements - this includes video...
Adobe will Rule The Roost in publishing (and don't give me any lip about GIMP - GIMP's UI sux ass and it's ability to handle CMYK or (x) plate printing is zero, and Adobe OWNZ that already - this will increase their hold on it.
Fireworks is TOAST. Dead within a year.
This is going to require people to completely re-think workflows and processes.
I for one DO NOT look forward to our Abobe Overlords.
RS
Why did Hitler invade Poland? (Score:3, Interesting)
It ain't Pakistan, it's China.
Macrodobe has a disgusting amount of leverage that neither Adobe nor Macromedia alone have - lop Quark out of the equation and Macrodobe OWNS desktop publishing on two platforms. Artschool/Vo-Tech "web design" ? They'll own that. Graphics creation and production? Yeah, Apple makes your swankass Final Cut Pro but you're still doing the graphics for your overlays in Macrodobe Photoshop MX 2006.
You really think Apple or Microsoft can afford to piss off The De Facto Graphics Standard?
No.
Hell, Apple suffered for YEARS under Adobe's continuing threats to drop Mac support for $fillintheblank because whatever Apple was intending to do to the OS (full memory protection planned for 9.3, for example- which had been planned and Working for awhile but was never implemented for this reason) would "force them to rewrite their applications" and there wasn't enough money in the mac market to make that worthwhile (bullshit).
If it wasn't for Photoshop and Illustrator, Apple would have probably told them to shove it years ago. Hell, the steaming pile of shit that is Premiere is one of the primary reasons that iMovie and the light version of FCP exist at all - video editing on the mac prior to these apps was like mp3 playback on the mac prior to iTunes - it either Sucked Horribly or you paid out the ass for something Awesome (usually hardware linked) to do it. No middle ground.
I'm ranting, I'm ranting... but Macromedia's OS X apps are actually semi-decent (Flash support blows a dead moose, but it always has), and Adobe's leave a lot to be desired. "Why is Photoshop 5.5 running IN CLASSIC FASTER than Photoshop CS for just about everything?!" kind of a lot to be desired.
As a Creative Professional, I'm disgusted to see one of the three companies I buy software from (Macromedia, Adobe, Apple) get swallowed up by the asshole of the three.
ok...I read every post in this thread. why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Obvious the TRUTH. (Score:3, Funny)
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
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: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
Re:Mac OSX Issues (Score:2)
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:Mac OSX Issues (Score:4, Interesting)
They've both been developing for Macs forever, Adobe was born writing software for the Mac platform, Macromedia (as Macromind) arrived on the scene several years later AFAIK. Either way, that experience probably counts for jack shit in developing for MacOS X.
Check your facts [wikipedia.org]* before posting please....
FCPro, when released was not competition for Premiere. At the time, it was concieved as a broadcast video and film editing product, competing in the market with Avid and other specialist vendors. Permiere may have come a way since then, but back then, Adobe decided that rather than spend to bring it to X, and have to compete against / bring it to the standard of the OS vendor's own offerings (FCPro) that it would withdraw from the Mac market in video editing. There is approximately zero-chance that Adobe will be developing another Mac video product. The only product that they make for Mac, After Effects, is the only one with a strong competitive advantage. Another example would be Album, it will never be coming to Mac while Apple make iPhoto.
Tho the article itself is thin on detail, it does try to pose a possible reasoning to the takeover, taht has everyone shaking their heads. People who make their livings using Macromedia's products are understandably nervous... with so many competing products, this sort of thing is bound to result in less choice for users, unless, as suggested on Ars Technica, some sort of two tiered approach to the design product lines is taken, with Macormedia's offerings on the lower tier. It's easy enough, especially in the snobby world of design, to say that everyone uses Photoshop and Illustrator, but Freehand and Fireworks have their fans. And they're agressively bundled with Macromedia's current flagship product, Flash.
In the drive to cut costs after Adobe has dug deep to make this purchase, I'd be more concerned for some of Macromedia's lesser products such as Director & Authorware... that they made money for their precvious owner might not save them, as the bar for acceptable performance may well be raised, given the 2 company's price:earnings ratios. Although having very few competitors in their respective niche markets might count for something...
* I know that Wikipaedia != facts, but i don't think there's much in that particular entry that's opinion