Sarah Doherty

Always thinking. Always dreaming.

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  2. Adobe’s Depleted Bank Account

    Unless you’ve been living under a rock all day, you’ve heard the news. No, not about the pope. But rather, that Adobe Systems has announced a definitive agreeement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.

    It seems like everyone is up in arms about this. Between web sites, and my friends ever running mouths people have come to assume that this will allow Adobe to stop innovating, and create bloated products. I disagree.

    Sure, Adobe has just sucked up their major competitor. But the worst competitor is themselves. By acquiring Macromedia, Adobe will be able to truly integrate all of the products. College students won’t have to worry about buying two software packages, but rather one. Adobe has always had an incredibly good sense of integration. Ever used InDesign before? The way it flawlessly edits photos in Photoshop and exports final products to GoLive for web consumption is a dream. Version Cue, Adobe’s file manager allows multiple people to work on the same project via a server without any hiccups.

    Each company’s product line has its pros and cons. The deed has been done, so stop the sulking and imagine the possibilities.

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    1. Jay said on April 18, 2005 10:38 PM:

      I could not disagree more.

      The idea of antitrust protection is gone in American. It went out with the Microsoft case when W. took office.

      Adobe is an extremely litigious company… ever wonder what happened to the tabbed pallets in Macromedia software?

      What will press Adobe to make GoLive better when it no longer has Dreamweaver to compete against? Since Flash is an internal product now, will Adobe forgo standards use when a flash element can be plugged in instead? What does Adobe care… they don’t have a browser product…

      Yes, this is great news for college kids on a budget… but what will keep the cost of Adobe Design Suite down with no major competitor? How can we know that the price won’t just double?

      Sorry Darling, but I think you’re way wrong on this one.

    2. Ryan said on April 19, 2005 2:23 AM:

      Oh, I will sulk. This is the beginning of the end of a good WSIWYG HTML editor (Dreamweaver) and many other fine Macromedia products.

      Without competition, there is no incentive to improve. Adobe is now a gigant, corporate behemoth. Think about Microsoft. They are huge and have purchased/stolen/aquired dozens of pieces of software only to make things more bloated.

      Adobe is for design, not web. Macromedia designed their software from the ground up for the web. Adobe has tried to keep up, but really hasn’t done a good job. And now Adobe will slowly kill off all the good software Macromedia has created.

    3. Winson said on April 19, 2005 3:31 AM:

      Ha, i came to your site through Ryan Doherty’s blog, forgive me if i surprised you (or.. something.)

      I, on the other hand, do agree with you in this clash-of-the-titans merger. The standardized palettes in Adobe’s software is what makes me prefer them over Macromedia. Maybe it’s because i use a mac, but it’s frustrated to use Macromedia’s programs (mainly Flash) because it’s so slow and buggy comparing to clean-as-whistle Adobe products. I understand that Macromedia products are made on a PC first before being ported to a Mac, which is why the Flash Player is always so slow on my Powerbook G4 when it’d be perfectly fine if i were to use a PIII.

      i can understand why Adobe wants to buy out Macromedia too. Up till now, they have to fork out cash with every GoLive/Illustrator/Photoshop releases to Macromedia for their Flash licenses. I mean, sure, Adobe is trying to push for SVG.. but that’s not nearly as standardized as Flash (98% availablitiy in today’s computers is hard to beat).

      And sure, there’s no major competitors now. But who’s to say there won’t be anything else out there in the near future? Two minds are better than one.. so maybe things’ll work out..

      Oh, and contrary to Ryan’s comment, i think Dreamweaver will make it as GoLive will fade.. Dreamweaver has a much bigger market share simply to be ignored.. (i mean.. would Adobe forgo Flash for SVG?)

      I always thought Apple was going to buy Macromedia first, heh. I wonder if the reports were right that Adobe’s going after Microsoft.. would that mean that Adobe’s going to be closer ties with Apple now? (I doubt it since their products are leaning closer to the Wintels.)

    4. Jay said on April 19, 2005 7:10 PM:

      I agree with Winson re: Dreamweaver prevailing over GoLive and Flash over SVG… What other internal battles will be fought? Illustrator over Freehand? Any others?

      Sarah, you need to either A. Not require email addresses in comments, or B. NOT PUBLISH THEM :)

    5. Jay said on April 19, 2005 7:10 PM:

      Oh yeah, turn on TypeKey comment support too!