Adobe to acquire Macromedia

The future of StudioMX?

Published on April 18, 2005 By PixelPirate In WinCustomize News

Seems like Adobe is to acquire Macromedia. I could imagine Flash being one of the main reasons. What this means imo, is less competition on professional graphics software, and possibly the death or a merging of existing Macromedia products.

What's next? Will Adobe acquire QuarkXPress too, and kill all competition?

Comments (Page 1)

Eroticus Prime

on Apr 18, 2005

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

horiz0n

on Apr 18, 2005

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.

Surj

on Apr 18, 2005

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

I really liked Macromedia too...

phill666

on Apr 18, 2005

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.

PixelPirate

on Apr 18, 2005

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

on Apr 18, 2005

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

Black Xero

on Apr 18, 2005

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

Same Comments

citizen_valah

on Apr 18, 2005

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

jdavis318

on Apr 18, 2005

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!!!

horiz0n

on Apr 18, 2005

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*

Elesarr

on Apr 18, 2005

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

PixelPirate

on Apr 18, 2005

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...

paxx

on Apr 18, 2005

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.

RAd_Tad

on Apr 18, 2005

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

Jademeister

on Apr 18, 2005

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

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