Big news in the graphic/web world. Adobe buys Macromedia - what do you think?

[rexnervous]

Adobe buys Macromedia for $3+ billion (http://www.betanews.com/article/Adobe_Buys_Macromedia_for_34_Billion/1113832582)

Two of the powerhouses in graphics, especially web-oriented. Is this good news or bad news?

Good:

* Better interface and interoperability between some very cool/necessary programs (Illustrator vectors export into Flash. Photoshop integration into Dreamweaver.)
* Better suite packages for designers

Bad:

* Monopoly on some products. You can say bye-bye to Freehand, leaving Illustrator as basically the only vector design program. Fireworks could be eliminated, as ImageReady can handle some of the same stuff.

* Will a large company be slower to market with changes/edits? Will the first batch of "integration" contain major surprises or bugs?

My first reaction was - wow, I'm surprised that it wasn't Microsoft that purchased Macromedia. Overall my reaction now is probably positive.

[wonderwench]

I'd rather see ADBE acquire MACR than to see M$FT gobble up yet another company. I think your concerns are valid, but will be handled well by ADBE. They are used to managing multiple product lines. This should be any different.

[holmes]

I think the big question is really how much real support is the Mac platform going to get? Adobe IMO has made little attempt to expand their Mac base, instead relying on the existing marketbase to maintain themeselves. Part of their Indesign success on the Mac was more of an anti-Quark vote as opposed to a pro-adobe vote.

Anyway having a competitor that was able to attract the still profitable Mac base, forced Adobe to continue to at least upgrade their products. Now being the only game in town, severely reduces that motivation; not saying that Adobe will stop producting Mac platform versions, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Windows versions incorporate more features and work better/faster than their Apple counterparts.

And that's not good for Apple. I wonder if this might be the moviation for Apple to start producing an Apple branded graphics suite?

[wonderwench]

I'm a Mac user - the apps problem is always going to exist as we are a "minority" platform. The best hope for Mac apps is a strong user base - which the iPod > Mac conversions is helping along.

I'd trust Adobe for Mac development over Microsoft any day.

[holmes]

Adobe is a Corporation. They are no different than Mircosoft. Their loyalty is to their stockholders, not to Apple. If they deem that Mac Development is costing them too much money, they will reduce support for it or kill it. When was the last time Pagemaker got a decent upgrade before they killed it? or Framemaker which is only for Windows now? How many other great Apple only or Apple optimized products did Adobe purchase and ruin once they got their hands on it? GoLive and pretty much everything they got from Aldus.

There was a time when you had real choice, now you have one; that is never a good thing...especially for Apple, the ipod notwithstanding. Sure you could switch to Canvas or Corel, but then you might as well switch to the GIMP and Inkscape for Linux for all the support you're going to get.

[AHunter3]

Eons ago, when Adobe acquired Aldus, Aldus owned Freehand and PageMaker.

If I recall correctly, Aldus had snarfed up Freehand from an even earlier owner, and there was some term in the merger/acquisition agreement that said, effectively, "there will always be an independent 'Freehand' product". Even if I misremember that part, there was some kind of clause that caused Adobe to sell off Freehand to Macromedia rather than simply absorb it, swipe some of its ideas/code for Illustrator and discontinue it. Anyone remember this?

Now Adobe is once again buying out a company that owns Freehand. I wonder if that old clause is still in effect, requiring Adobe to spin off or sell off Freehand yet again?

[AHunter3]

That "even earlier company" that owned Freehand might, conceivably, have been Silicon Beach Software? Or was that SuperPaint?

[holmes]

Superpaint and Supercard...man what a time to be graphic artist! Everything was so new...!

[Shalmanese]

Keep in mind, this is only the annoucment, it still has to pass regulator approval.

[Homebrew]

When was the last time Pagemaker got a decent upgrade before they killed it? PageMangler is not dead. They originally planned to kill it once InDesign came out; but instead they repositioned it as layout for "business, education, and small- and home-office professionals". InDesign replaced it quite well for professional page layout.

[holmes]

You're right, I connected the Indesign upgrade offer, with the old death sentence...but for $499 what "business, education, and small- and home-office professionals" is going to buy Pagemaker when you can get CorelDraw Suite for $179 or Canvas for $349 which are full service products?

BTW has pagemaker had a significant upgrade?

[rexnervous]

Keep in mind, this is only the annoucment, it still has to pass regulator approval.
I know there's some talk about it not passing, but how likely is that?

[holmes]

Sorry, Corel Draw is $399.

[B. Serum]

This was big news in my world too. I've always been a fan of Adobe, but this felt kind of "omnivorous" to me. Then I read an article about how their doing so would mitigate Microsoft's continuing dominance of software media. That helped a little bit.

I wouldn't be worried about Adobe not improving their products... if Photoshop is any indicator, they keep updating their products on nearly a yearly basis even if there is no viable competitor.

I also recall when Adobe gobbled up Aldus. I seem to recall that they either chose not to buy FreeHand or weren't permitted to acquire FreeHand due to the competing product offering. The last report I read is that it still wasn't approved by the govermental regulatory agency. If FreeHand and Dreamweaver were up for grabs, and I was the boss over at Quark, I'd be getting my checkbook out.

[B. Serum]

You're right, I connected the Indesign upgrade offer, with the old death sentence...but for $499 what "business, education, and small- and home-office professionals" is going to buy Pagemaker when you can get CorelDraw Suite for $179 or Canvas for $349 which are full service products?

BTW has pagemaker had a significant upgrade?

Nope. IIRC, although it's still being sold, it is not being updated for anything other than the occasional service patch.

[B. Serum]

I think the big question is really how much real support is the Mac platform going to get? Adobe IMO has made little attempt to expand their Mac base, instead relying on the existing marketbase to maintain themeselves. Part of their Indesign success on the Mac was more of an anti-Quark vote as opposed to a pro-adobe vote.

Anyway having a competitor that was able to attract the still profitable Mac base, forced Adobe to continue to at least upgrade their products. Now being the only game in town, severely reduces that motivation; not saying that Adobe will stop producting Mac platform versions, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Windows versions incorporate more features and work better/faster than their Apple counterparts.

And that's not good for Apple. I wonder if this might be the moviation for Apple to start producing an Apple branded graphics suite?

What support are you seeing diminish?
And I believe this thread being in existence pretty much illustrates an attempt to expand their Mac base. They friggin' own the Mac base.

Although Windows owns the business market, Apple owns the creative market. But if you want to put some money on them putting more features in their Windows versions of their creative apps, I am more than willing to pony up.

[squeegee]

Eons ago, when Adobe acquired Aldus, Aldus owned Freehand and PageMaker.

If I recall correctly, Aldus had snarfed up Freehand from an even earlier owner, and there was some term in the merger/acquisition agreement that said, effectively, "there will always be an independent 'Freehand' product". Even if I misremember that part, there was some kind of clause that caused Adobe to sell off Freehand to Macromedia rather than simply absorb it, swipe some of its ideas/code for Illustrator and discontinue it. Anyone remember this?Yes.

Freehand was acquired by Aldus from Altsys. In 1994, Adobe announced a merger (really, an acquisition) of Aldus. The original developer of Freehand, Altsys, now a part of Aldus, went ballistic, and petitioned the FTC to put a kabosh on the deal for antitrust reasons. Surprisingly, the FTC commissioners agreed, and Adobe was forced to divest Freehand back to the original developer, Altsys, to complete the Aldus acquisition. Macromedia then snatched up Freehand from Altsys.

Dunno what that FTC agreement means to the current acquisition. Perhaps Adobe will need to divest Freehand yet again. Or perhaps Adobe will seek to get the FTC to allow it this time. (In my opinion, the 1995 FTC decision was bizarre, and at least one FTC commissioner said as much in a written dissent. But IANA antritrust expert) We'll see.

[Nonsuch]

I think the big question is really how much real support is the Mac platform going to get? Adobe IMO has made little attempt to expand their Mac base, instead relying on the existing marketbase to maintain themeselves. Part of their Indesign success on the Mac was more of an anti-Quark vote as opposed to a pro-adobe vote.
It sounds to me like you're contradicting yourself, saying that Adobe made no effort to expand its Mac customer base yet admitting they've grown their market with InDesign (and they have). Success is success; even if people were switching to ID purely out of disgust with Quark (which I don't think is true, as most of the designers I know still like Adobe), that's still money in Adobe's pockets. Adobe is far from locking up the DTP market; they have a lot of incentive to treat their Mac customers well for a long time to come. (They saw what happened when Quark failed to do just that.)

Anyway having a competitor that was able to attract the still profitable Mac base, forced Adobe to continue to at least upgrade their products. Now being the only game in town, severely reduces that motivation; not saying that Adobe will stop producting Mac platform versions, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Windows versions incorporate more features and work better/faster than their Apple counterparts.
Is there, in fact, more competition on the Windows side? I mean serious competition, not just the hobbyist DTP software you can get at Best Buy? The only big name that's still out there is Corel, and most of their products exist in Mac versions. If Adobe's Mac offerings started to flag, you can bet Corel would be in there trying to chisel away business; they did it before (http://www.macworld.com/news/2001/11/15/apple/index.php).

[AHunter3]

Freehand was acquired by Aldus from Altsys.

Altsys. Yes, thank you.

(Remember the jokes about "Adobe Frustrator" before the inclusion of Freehand in the merger was axed?)

[B. Serum]

An editorial from MacWorld submitted for your consideration:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/04/19/adobeanalysis/index.php

[squeegee]

Altsys. Yes, thank you.
(Remember the jokes about "Adobe Frustrator" before the inclusion of Freehand in the merger was axed?)Yep.

Actually, after thinking about it more, I think I flummoxed some of the details. But Google is not being my friend on this one, so I'm working mainly from memory.

Aldus and Altsys were still separate companies in 1995, but Aldus had a long-term, exclusive right to publish Freehand. Adobe's acquisition would have acquired that license. There's some details here (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CGC/is_n16_v20/ai_16227542).

Interestingly, in 1995 Adobe petitioned (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1995/12/aba.htm) the FTC to relax the 10/94 consent order so that Adobe could acquire an interest in a company making illustration software without prior FTC approval. I'm not finding any record online regarding whether that petition was granted, but perhaps the antitrust strings are looser regarding Adobe acquiring Freehand this time around.

[Snickers]

It's interesting in the technical writing world too. Macromedia snatched up eHelp, producers of RoboHELP, *the* help authoring package. And then promptly killed it (in my thinking, because killing helps their rival package, WebWorks Publisher). Now that Adobe has Macromedia, what's going to happen there?

Not that I'm optimistic. Adobe's done exactly not much with FrameMaker, a program I use daily. And I'm really not sold on InDesign, the product they're trying to position as Frame's replacement - it simply doesn't have the robust features that Frame has and that I need to produce long documents. It's certainly great at layout. Long document management, not so much.

[mhendo]

Here's (http://daringfireball.net/2005/04/adobe_translation) a rather tongue-in-cheek translation of Abode's press release on the subject.

[B. Serum]

It's interesting in the technical writing world too. Macromedia snatched up eHelp, producers of RoboHELP, *the* help authoring package. And then promptly killed it (in my thinking, because killing helps their rival package, WebWorks Publisher). Now that Adobe has Macromedia, what's going to happen there?

Macromedia killed RoboHELP?

http://macromedia.com/software/robohelp/

It looks to me like it's alive. What am I missing?