04.19
Adobe acquires Macromedia – ouch, never thought I would see *that* particular move…
Note: What follows is a summary of my initial thoughts only. This is a huge shift for a great number of people obviously, and they impact will be felt in many, many ways. The bits below are just my initial ramblings…
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From a consumer’s point of view I think this is a questionable turn of events. In some respects (but not all, obviously) the two company’s product ranges have offered competing lines for many years. In my opinion it’s this that drives continual (and speedy) product improvement cycles which we have seen, particularly from Macromedia, a lot of in the past 5 years say. These two companies merging their offering will provide a much lesser requirement for them to continue that…
This is aside from lots of other questions about Macromedia’s (excellent) practise of engaging the community on so many levels. It’s my experience that Adobe, whilst reaching out to specific people at specific times, is much more formal when it comes to consumer relationships. I guess we’ll have to wait for the specifics to emerge properly to call this type of thing, but it’s just one concern I have out of many.
I count a lot of Macromedia staff as good friends – both here in the UK/Europe and in the States and I hope this all goes well for them. Personally, I think that on the whole, they’ve done an excellent job over the years and I hope that Adobe recognise that too…
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From a mobile point of view however, I think this could be excellent news. Recent announcements about partnerships with companies like Nokia have strengthened their position over the (in my opinion) extremely mishandled rollout of Flash-Lite and the Adobe situation has the potential to take it all to the next step. Adobe have embraced mobile markup languages in GoLive to a level that Dreamweaver hasn’t yet matched and they’ve taken huge leaps to promote the use of SVG on mobiles too. Tying this all in with Flash-Lite has got the hallmarks of a killer development environment leading to killer end-user apps I think.
Of course, this is the ideal situation, but maybe the beancounters will have a different idea… I hope not. More commentary on the mobile situation to come as I gather my thoughts…
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So, also, this will probably be the end of Fireworks (about time!) and I can’t see Freehand survive much longer now either… Flash is fairly safe I would hope (speaking from a product line-up point of view only) and who knows, maybe we’ll see a revival of Director?
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See? The impact of this is huge…
I hope your wrong about fireworks-it’s so much better than imageready and the ability to have multiple elements on one layer is something photoshop is in need of. Never understood the adobe programmers-they never thought of this? The programmable api is so useful. I really hope Adobe can remove it’s own ego and actually see what macromedia does better than them.
Ethan,
you make some good points about Fireworks, and Adobe would be foolish to not take knowledgeable opinions such as yours and listen to them. I hope that they end up taking the best of all-worlds and integrating them (see my original comments about the mobile stuff) but I suspect that in some areas Adobe will ‘rule-out’ and just kill off the ‘redundant’ product.
I picked on Fireworks and Freehand because they have always traditionally competed head-to-head with Adobe’s products. And, there is no doubting that Photoshop/Imageready and Illustrator are the more accomplished in many, many ways. I suspect that a lot of technology *will* become integrated into any new line-up but it will probably take some time…
Taking a lead from some of the Macromedian’s heavily ‘legalezed’ and careful posts, and reading between the lines (perhaps inaccurately mind you…) I think the main goals for Adobe are to slot certain very strong products into their line-up – products such as Flash, Flex and Cold Fusion. I don’t think too much attention will be paid to much else for a while at least… This is just an opinion mind you…
I too hope you’re wrong about Fireworks Pete. I still find it an indespensible tool, especially from a workflow point of view with Dreamweaver.
I agree that it looks like the end of the road for Freehand, though with no recent updates, so many have now opted for Illustrator anyway.
I really hope Director survives, I really, really do. Somehow though, in the pit of my stomach I doubt it. That’s going to be my saddest bit, for sure
It will be interesting to see how the products are integrated or changed to fit. Fireworks is a great program, but Freehand doesn’t hold up as well to Illustrator (IMHO). For years Fireworks has had funny little performance issues, like the way it can take longer to preview or the way it doesn’t scroll very well while using tools.
It should bode well for Flash, When was the last time you saw Flash mentioned in the Wall Street Journal/ Financial Times. I am much happier with Adobe acquiring Macromedia that if Microsoft had*
I’m amazed at how many people are saying how good Fireworks was/is… Nearly everyone I’ve ever ‘spoken’ to about this has always expressed a preference for Photoshop for the creation of their web graphics (not Imageready mind you…)
I agree that this all bodes well for Flash David… But, I have some concerns about Adobe’s capability to continue the success of it to be honest. They may be able to retain the majority of Macromedians who have made it what it is so far but I have a feeling that Adobe will struggle to maintain the developer relationships that are currently in place. The two companies really do take completely different stances on their consumer relationships.
I think we might see something happen with Director Wayne – although maybe not with Adobe. It’s a gut feeling though, so it’s probably wrong…
From a Flash Lite perspective, I think you are right Pete that this is good news. Not only have Adobe shown a lot of interest in the mobile market, but the combined revenue and value of the new Adobe will mean a lot more to partnerships with the ‘big mobile boys.’
Money seems to talk in the mobile world and with the increased value of Adobe, they will get a lot more interest from Networks and Manufacturers. Im sure Macromedia have things in the pipeline for this year, but I can only see things accelerating after the acquisition goes through.
(BTW, I prefer FW for web graphics, even though its slow as hell. And Ive never used anything other than FH, so I hope it stays.)
Paul