Adobe Buys Macromedia in Stock Buyout

Brian Ambrozy 18 Apr, 2005 at 8:42am ET Article published in Tech

In a bit of rather shocking news, it appears that Adobe, Inc., creators of professional video and graphic design software such as Photoshop and Premiere, has purchased direct rival Macromedia. Macromedia is also in the business of professional design software, most notably Flash and Dreamweaver. Where this leaves Macromedia’s product portfolio, one can only imagine. Full details can be found at the press release at Adobe’s website.

Source: Adobe.com

Comments

18 Apr 2005 ~ 9:02am primesuspect I almost didn't believe it when I saw it... I wonder what this means for dreamweaver (golive sucks) and flash (does anybody even remember adobe's competing product?)...

Say goodbye to freehand and fireworks, that much I can almost guarantee...
18 Apr 2005 ~ 9:04am MiracleManS I am sad...so sad
18 Apr 2005 ~ 9:48am KingFish They were great competitors, I bet this won't bode well for the consumers in the end.
18 Apr 2005 ~ 10:06am Linc NNNNNNNNNNNNnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!111 :bawling:
18 Apr 2005 ~ 10:30am GHoosdum So... Corel bought Jasc. Adobe bought Macromedia. What's next? :bawling:
18 Apr 2005 ~ 10:35am Rewired Does Apple own a chunk of Adobe? I thought I remember reading that somewhere sometime ago but the memory is vague
18 Apr 2005 ~ 10:40am primesuspect No, apple is not really in bed with Adobe. Apple sort of ditched adobe on the whole premiere/final cut thing and there's been a bit of bad blood ever since.
18 Apr 2005 ~ 11:18am MediaMan I guess the ADOBE site is being hit hard as it's down for me. Nevertheless...Adobe is in an agreement to purchase Macromedia for 3.4 Billion dollars.

There are two ways of looking at this.

1) The "Darth Gates" approach. If you can't beat your competition...buy them and make them go away.

2) If you want more financial profit. Buy your competition and own both sides of the fence.

I don't think that Macromedia products will go away overnight. Adobe may integrate the Macromedia code/philosophy into a future Adobe release and merry the names thus swaying Macromedia fans over to Adobe.

EG: New Adobe Web Designer

And the Macromedia logo will be incorporated itnto it.

I think both products will be available for a time but a migration will occur to begin moving Macromedia fans over to Adobe. There will be more emphasis on making a new Adobe product and less R&D into Macromedia.
18 Apr 2005 ~ 12:20pm KingFish I liken this to the compaq/hp merger/buyout. Both companies had very similar lines of products and it wound up being a poor decision in the end. I suspect this will be the same (bad when all the dust settles) although there is a difference between two large hardware companies merging versus two large software companies merging.
18 Apr 2005 ~ 12:22pm GrayFox I have a bad fealing about this.......
18 Apr 2005 ~ 12:42pm Shorty Goddamn. Thats all I have to say... goddamn.
18 Apr 2005 ~ 2:05pm Camman Wow this is shocking, it's too bad if Fireworks goes away as you predicted Brian, I really like it, but I haven't used the Adobe equivalent. But definitly crazy news.

The Adobe site is slammed, but Macromedia has a press release about it right here http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/pr/2005/adobe_macromedia.html
18 Apr 2005 ~ 2:36pm PirateNinja

i love adobe
18 Apr 2005 ~ 3:03pm primesuspect I'm as adobe-fanboy as they come, but golive was crap compared to dreamweaver, and of course there's only one FLASH.

I hope they don't try to cram adobe's tool interface onto flash and call it a new version. That's my biggest fear.
18 Apr 2005 ~ 3:11pm GHoosdum My biggest fear is being stripped naked and smeared with dog poo in a crowded city street. But that thing you said, that's a close second.
18 Apr 2005 ~ 4:27pm Private_Snoball

The combination of Adobe and Macromedia strengthens our mission of helping people and organizations communicate better. Through the combination of our powerful development, authoring and collaboration tools – and the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash – we have the opportunity to drive an industry-defining technology platform that delivers compelling, rich content and applications across a wide range of devices and operating systems.

Has anyone ever read a statement more full of bullshit ever?
18 Apr 2005 ~ 9:25pm pseudonym

Private_Snoball wrote:

Has anyone ever read a statement more full of bull**** ever?

Actually, I have. That statement isn't bs, thats what should be done in a takeover like that. You buy out the other company to get ahold of their stuff and use it in your own, thus improving your product. This isn't just a takeover where you buy the company and flush them down the toilet because they were a competitor, Adobe WANTS to not only make more profit but to use Macro's software in their own. I don't understand why everything in the software business world has to be the Emperor taking over and disbanding the sentate all the time...

On second thought...... Geeks, geek industry, gotta find a bad guy somewhere who is on the dark side...
18 Apr 2005 ~ 9:47pm Thrax I weep for the future of Dreamweaver.
19 Apr 2005 ~ 6:42am ron-matt I'm not sure there in an adobe equivalent to Fireworks. Oh, unless you refer to Photoshop. Actually Flash could stand some refinements. What was that great web/animation app Adobe had? Livemotion? Yeah, they got a handle on web graphics allright. Their answer to Dreamweaver, Go live, Another rousing success story hey? Freehand can go away, who cares. Corel hasn't come up with anything innovative since Coreldraw 6 and I couldn't tell you what that was. Adobe is now the Microsoft of graphics and there isn't any Apple to poke them in the butt from time to time. I can only assume that this [merger] is for a common good and that Adobe products will somehow be better, not that you can ask for much more from Photoshop. All will be well with the world.
19 Apr 2005 ~ 7:22am deepsea I've uninstalled Macromedia Flush player, and if necessary, I'll kill Adobe, too. I don't want any application that intentionally makes the web irritating.