Post Archive
› April 18, 2005
Adobe buys Macromedia
Yes, it's true, Adobe has purchased Macromedia. This seems rather monumental, and sorta makes my head spin thinking of what this could mean down the road. Will the two companies take the best aspects from one another? Will the new conglomerate become completely obnoxious in it's totalitarian rule? Will the lack of direct competition between the two soften them into a giant marshmellow? Will software engineers become disaffected with the restructuring and invest all their energies into woodworking, hand-puppetry and other hobbies? One thing is certain, it's too early to tell.
Comments
1. April 18, 2005 12:35 PM
2. April 18, 2005 01:25 PM
3. April 18, 2005 02:36 PM
Brady J. Frey Posted…
I wonder what's going to happen to SVG and Flash -- two slightly competing technologies. SVG is a standard, flash is not -- I'd love to see SVG take over with the power of flash... this should be interesting.
Will this mean that GoLive will suck less now, and that Dreamweaver will have Opera for it's rendering engine? Here's to hoping we get an overall code improvement
4. April 18, 2005 02:48 PM
Nate Posted…
They are being quite hush-hush about the huge product overlaps, from the FAQ:
The companies are largely complementary, and thus the amount of competition between us is limited
Doesn't that sound like a bunch of baloney? There are huge applications what will either need to be dropped, merged or modified beyond recognition to get a streamlined product lineup. But we won't find out anytime soon (transaction closed by fall):
Until the close of transaction, the companies will continue to operate business and usual. The combined company will not be able to create a joint product roadmap until after the transaction is closed.
And about Flash/SVG (good question tho), too bad we won't know for a while:
Both Adobe and Macromedia have been involved in defining SVG and both were part of the W3C working group that defined SVG. The combined company will continue to work with customers and partners to define a future roadmap for our products.
Nate translation: We *are* SVG, step off! You can't have none till we are ready.
5. April 18, 2005 03:27 PM
Brady J. Frey Posted…
Limited competition... riiiight. Tell that to a few designers I've worked with -- that's like Adobe buying Quark and saying it's no big deal, Xpress and InDesign were never at each others necks.
Ooh, maybe that's the next deal in the works...
6. April 18, 2005 04:54 PM
Joe Posted…
...well keep in mind that the SEC has to approve this. Which, in theory should take a while. Also, it is going to be some time before people in meeting rooms start deciding to take the axe or the wrench to products on either side.7. April 18, 2005 07:02 PM
co2 Posted…
Well, here's my take on product changes:
- Dreamweaver and GoLive obviously become one
- Freehand is destroyed for the greater good of mankind, Illustrator reigns supreme
- Photoshop has Fireworks' better web design integration er, integrated
- And finally, Flash is dropped in favour of PDFs, you want animation, then flick really fast through the pages of the PDF document!
Here's hoping! ;o)
8. April 18, 2005 07:42 PM
Andrew Krespanis Posted…
WHAT THE??!
Imagine the possibilities though... Flash output as .swf OR .svg, DreamWeaver FINALLY having a rendering engine of higher quality than IE5/PC; and best of all -- the death of Director!
Mwuhahahahaaa.. :)
9. April 18, 2005 08:07 PM
Brady J. Frey Posted…
...hopefully too that imageready is trashed in favor of fireworks built in. I've been thinking of the merges all day as well, and I can see a lot of plus and minues:
- I concur. Goodbye Freehand, though it has some excellent features in it, it's just not up to par
- Photoshop merges with flash, you can buy a low end web version based off of fireworks system
- Dreamweaver gets more of GoLive's drag and drop, and illustrator/photoshop integration. I'll still be using BBEdit and SKEdit, thank you.
- Contribute CMS system built into Acrobat for companies? Interesting...
Hey, and maybe Adobe get's a modern logo for a change
Either way, I can see this as good and bad -- but with Adobe bridge and full integration, I have aspirations of it streamlining my productivity for those of us who care about print AND the web. I fear corporate stagnation on features.
Or will we see a grand unification of some of these programs, much like Canvas is? Though I'd argue if I'd really want that... yet.
10. April 18, 2005 09:05 PM
Chris Lienert Posted…
I've scanned through the FAQ but can't see the "bootloads of cash" reason for the merger. One highlight is the question "Do you anticipate a reduction in force as a result of this transaction?" where they've used four long sentences to say "hell, yes!"
11. April 18, 2005 09:41 PM
joe Posted…
Photoshop merges with flash, you can buy a low end web version based off of fireworks system
This has been driving me nuts for years(evil brow @ Adobe). Yes photoshop has been a great tool for graphic/web design...but it is "P H O T O S H O P" .
12. April 18, 2005 09:46 PM
Andrew Krespanis Posted…
I have aspirations of it streamlining my productivity for those of us who care about print AND the web.
What, both of you? (hehe, that's for 'modern logo' comment -- the 80's 'A' rocks ;)
"bootloads of cash"? How about a combined yearly income of $2billion. I'd take all of that if I could, wouldn't you?!
While I do like actionscript, I'm apposed to binary formats on the web in general; yet still I wonder what's going to happen to Flash in the long run... Once SVG is stable (read: 2015), Flash devotees may feel the rug pulled directly from under them. As much as I have been a faithful Adobe customer for almost half of my life, I still have doubts that they'll be able to handle the two very different animated interaction models (SVG+JS vs. Flash+AS) within a single suite without butchering one -- and no prizes for guessing what the 'family favourite' is.
13. April 18, 2005 11:42 PM
Oliver Posted…
This is so F'ed up. I swear, if Adobe takes one advantage of Macromedia, I'm never buying/using any of their products again. It's got to be the worst they can do.
14. April 19, 2005 05:55 PM
Alan Posted…
Thsi would be nice:
Adobe combines Flash, Illustrator and After Effects to create one monster vector animation tool--which I am calling Illustrafterflash-- that is capable of delivering true interactive motion graphics to the web once and for all.
Designers will be able to seamlessly import what we now know as Illustrator files--layer by layer if need be, and then use the limitless timeline and video manipulation tool set that After Effects offers, and combine it with the interaction capabilities of Actionscript. I can't wait.
Any thoughts?
15. April 20, 2005 10:03 AM
dave Posted…
I see flash.app becoming a svg authoring tool (and a clever way of kickstarting the author base for svg, just hijack the competitors most widely used tool). Actionscript is just ecma script and svg is just like an open file format flash. I bet there is a very similar DOM buried in .swf
If Abobe's commitment for standards (by embracing svg) was for real I can see the whole MM product line going down the tubes
16. April 21, 2005 09:20 AM
Jeff Posted…
What about ColdFusion? Any ideas about what's going to happen there? Adobe has no competitive application server that I know of... Here's hoping that they can put more money behind the effort and we'll see it grow.
17. April 21, 2005 02:07 PM
Chris Mounsey Posted…
This is so F’ed up. I swear, if Adobe takes one advantage of Macromedia, I’m never buying/using any of their products again.
That's the point: you won't have a choice.
For the poor, old freelance designers who actually design for print, rather than assuming that some poor twit at the printhouse will sort out any crappy files, the loss of Freehand will be a major disaster.
In terms of simplicity, flexibility and ease of use, Freehand is lightyears ahead of Illustrator. I started using it on version 7, when it did wacky things that Illustrator didn't, like... well... supporting multiple pages. And then Master Pages. And having text tools which were easily the equal of anything in Pagemaker or Quark.
Freehand will die, I suspect, and my life will be more difficult–and expensive–without it...
18. April 22, 2005 10:53 PM
danny Posted…
Free hand and Fireworks dead!!, Photoshop and Ilustrator the new leaders!!
19. May 1, 2005 10:04 PM
Posted…
I hope Freehand survives. It is a better tool than Illustrator, by far!!!!!.
20. May 16, 2005 03:11 PM
Posted…
Anyone who prefers creating web graphics with Photoshop/Imageready and Illustrator rather than Fireworks either hasn't spent much time working with it or has a silly aversion to Macromedia in general. But hey, whatever floats yer boat.
21. May 16, 2005 03:22 PM
Brady J. Frey Posted…
While I'll argue Imageready is junk -- Photoshop and Illustrator are by far anything but junk. Professional designers, who have done print and web, know this. For designers, we need the power of vector and rasterized graphics -- anyone who's built a 72dpi logo in photoshop or fireworks will quickly learn the error of their ways should they branch out into other realms.
I almost always build my designs in photoshop and illustrator -- only using fireworks for advanced export or a few tweaks. It's just your preference.
22. May 17, 2005 02:12 PM
Michael Posted…
Don't forget Apple in all this. Final Cut Pro only came about after Adobe refused to help Apple. Just look at the Pro suite now. Could web and graphics apps be next. PLeeeese!23. August 10, 2005 11:43 PM
Freehander Posted…
I am finding this very hard to believe. Freehand is my everything, can't believe Adobe is killing it "softly"24. August 12, 2005 10:58 AM
Egor Kloos Posted…
Personally I haven't taken the time to really get to grips with fireworks. Using Photoshop along side firework does feel a bit ackward. However fireworks does seem to be more advanced.
Webstandards do seem to negate the use of many the features. Unless you're working on animation. Creating rollovers still seems to be stuck in the more traditional model rather than the more modern CSS rollover technique.
In the end the CSS based methodes require a slightly different way of working with images and that both applications don't seem to cope with very well.
25. December 12, 2005 08:06 AM
Adrian Posted…
I hope they'll keep all Macromedia products, but i'm not so sure about FreeHand- hope it will stay. What i think is scary is merging the products. So i keep hearing things like ImageWorks or DreamLive...- sounds silly but not funny. Well, in my opinion, in the web segment Adobe sucks big time - so they better support Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks. Forget about GoLive and the like....wich make my skin crawl anyway.
Nala Posted…
My only concern is the FreeHand and Dreamweaver will survive.
I can see Adobemedia totally killing Freehand in favor of Illustrator, but Dreamweaver is far more solid than Golive so hopefully it won't suffer the wrath of merger-mania.
I'd always hoped that Macromedia would throw the old X-Res image editor to the open source community but that'll probably never happen either now.