Adobe acquires Macromedia

[Sage]

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by both boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive, at a fixed exchange ratio, 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock in a tax-free exchange. Based on Adobe’s and Macromedia’s closing prices on Friday April 15, 2005, this represents a price of $41.86 per share of Macromedia common stock.


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.


By combining the passion and creativity of two leading-edge companies, we will continue driving innovations that are changing the ways people everywhere are experiencing and interacting with information.

More info here.


Um, holy shnikies? This has huge implications in the design market – Adobe will basically hold 99.999% of the market, and who knows what they'll do with Flash (especially since developers have shown almost no interest in SVG, and Microsoft has recently talked a lot about Avalon).

Crazy sheet. Adobe, the old print-based company, + Macromedia, the newer, web-based company = everything across all mediums. Why wasn't this even been in the nightly news? For christ's sake, this is huge!

If Adobe dares kill off Fireworks though, I will be so pissed…

 

[Burnout]

Uh.

Wow.

Certainly didn't expect this.

 

[TheChemist]

Saw it in the paper this morning. Could be good, could be bad.

 

[Omnis]

what's keeping it from becoming a monopoly?

 

[Ev0]

Wow, this is huge. Lets hope Adobe doesn't start to screw up Flash.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

This is a BIG thing indeed. I wonder if Adobe is now big enough to start entering into Microsoft-like practices.

Does Adobe have a product like Fireworks? I'm not sure. Illustrator doesn't seem to fit the bill properly, and Photoshop has some of the web integration functionality of Fireworks, but FW does the job so well, and so neatly. It really is a great product, although I would like to see some more resilience in its roundtrip HTML coding.

 

[tait]

I doubt we'll see anymore of Fireworks.

 

[emad]

The idea I think is so adobe can have their hands in every industry without diverting their own resources in developing something from scratch. By purchasing Macromedia, they have both web and print covered. If they play their cards right, they'll let Macromedia continue devloping the products they currently have (maybe with the exception of freehand since pagemaker is better) and Adobe will continue with what they have (except maybe golive since dreamweaver is better)

 

[LoudMusic]

Yeah, this is pretty crazy stuff. But I need to remind you that Adobe isn't the only print based company. Corel does image editing and Quark does layout. Also, the video apps that Adobe provides all have counterparts from Apple. This will get scary when Apple buys Adobe (:

 

[emad]

the Corel Suite, while nice, is ideal only for rasterized print applications. It doesn't have great bitmap editing.

Quark Xpress is outright amazing, but the thing is that Adobe Indesign does everything Quark does and it does it just as well. These programs are great, but they work on the principal that you already have your artwork made in other programs. These things are ideally suited for impositioning and layout to make press-ready documents.

The two programs adobe has that doesn't have a solid and extremely well established competition are Photoshop and Acrobat. Acrobat distiller/writer have no competition to speak of and Photoshop's competition, while it exists (gimp, jasc paintshop pro), just doesn't cut the cheese like Photoshop does.

What I find to be VERY interesting about this piece of news is that they announce this just a few weeks before they'll be releasing Adobe Creative Suite v2.

 

[Jondot]

*falls off chair and onto knees* *prayer position* "Adobe, who art consumed macromedia, let flash stay alive."

 

[Impreza04]

If they touch Dreamweaver or Fireworks I will not be happy...

 

[Spock]

they better keep dreamweaver, it kicks golive's arse.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Yes, I can't see Adobe doing much to Dreamweaver, save integrating it with Photoshop to provide some roundtrip stuff. Probably will be some integration with Acrobat as well.

Fireworks's position is less clear.

emad you're exactly right about what Quark XPress and InDesign do. This is how the major design and publishing houses (their target market) work though - the graphic artists are usually separate from the layout guys.

 

[emad]

emad you're exactly right about what Quark XPress and InDesign do. This is how the major design and publishing houses (their target market) work though - the graphic artists are usually separate from the layout guys.

My bro runs a print shop. Because of him, I've got access to and experience with just about every major graphics program available that was made for the print industry - both for mac and for windows

 

[RX-7_FC_DrIfteR]

Now all we got to do is wait for the best digitla editing software to come out. WHat kind of prices you think they'll have now?? 1,000? for there new intergrated dreamwearver Photoshop giant?

 

[Jordan]

This is some of THE WORST news I have ever heard in a long time. I hate Adobe, trying to push their worthless PDF files and highly overrated Photoshop. I've always gone out of my way to avoid Adobe products, refusing even to install Acrobat Reader. On the other hand, I have always stood by Macromedia and I have been a very loyal customer to them, but that will be difficult now...knowing where my money is going. Ugh...sick, just sick. Thanks for ruining one of the best software companies in the world, Adobe. 👎

 

[cardude2004]

I think that both Macromedia and Adobe are OK companies, but I hope that Macromedia products don't jump to skyhigh prices.

 

[donbenni]

I never use Macromedia's stuff really so am not too fussed. Flash should and will stay in one form or the other. I can't see Fireworks surviving. Between PS and AI the roles of FW are pretty much covered and Adobe wouldn't want a product that can be bought for half the price of AI and PS.
I'm amused by Jordan's view, reminds of my Dad's adversion to MS products. He ran OS/2 and Lotus Smartsuit amung others for years!

 

[emad]

I never use Macromedia's stuff really so am not too fussed. Flash should and will stay in one form or the other. I can't see Fireworks surviving. Between PS and AI the roles of FW are pretty much covered and Adobe wouldn't want a product that can be bought for half the price of AI and PS.
I'm amused by Jordan's view, reminds of my Dad's adversion to MS products. He ran OS/2 and Lotus Smartsuit amung others for years!

Fireworks I'm sure will almost be guaranteed to survive. Most web designers swear by it since it's the only one suited specifically towards designing graphics for the web.

What'll go most likely is Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Freehand. Both apps, while good, aren't as good as the competition. Even those two will stay at least a year or so till the companies are ready for their next batch of releases.

 

[rk]

I have to predict Adobe will dovetail FW into Photoshop. What else does Adobe have for the new digital age, GoLive, Illafrikkinstrator?
I used to use Dreamweaver for posting and PS for images, it was no problem really, although I had Fireworks (still do) and perceived it to be very robust, the useage seemed arcane and PS did aboulutely everything I needed which wasn't much, 99% jpg images...and I think Adobe will see it that way too. They clearly wanted Dreamweaver and Flash is a mighty sweet cherry, but this way Photoshop can make the transition away from being a virtual darkroom to something a little grander (a little $$$ier), oh and everyone that uses this stuff to survive is of course going to PAY.

 

[Sage]

…I hate Adobe, trying to push their worthless PDF files…

Oh, PDF has its good uses.

…and highly overrated Photoshop.

I dunno if it's overrated, but they charge a damn ransom for that thing. That's my biggest concern about this deal – For just $200 (with a student discount), I could get the entire Studio MX package, but that won't even buy you just Photoshop (and the entire Creative Suite costs $400!). With Adobe in control now…

At least Adobe will be able to clean up the interfaces – honestly, you have to try to make an interface as crappy as Flash's.

Fireworks seems to be the oddball that nobody knows what will happen to it (not just in this forum, but everywhere else on the 'net). If Adobe can effectively combine Photoshop, Illustrator, and ImageReady into one app, then I'd be content to let Fireworks go. Barring that though, they better not touch it, or there'll be hell to pay. 👎 Fireworks is the greatest thing ever created since cheese.

 

[ALPHA]

]I dunno if it's overrated, but they charge a damn ransom for that thing. That's my biggest concern about this deal – For just $200 (with a student discount), I could get the entire Studio MX package, but that won't even buy you just Photoshop (and the entire Creative Suite costs $400!). With Adobe in control now…

I’d have to agree, I don’t see how you could call Photoshop overrated at all, it’s a dream program! I’ve never had any problems with it, apart from it’s hunger for resources and astronomical price. Anyway if Adobe develops one standalone suite, the pirates aren’t going to be too happy because there’s less to copy but nobody likes them anyway because piracy is bad (yay for my journalistic balance!).

At least Adobe will be able to clean up the interfaces – honestly, you have to try to make an interface as crappy as Flash's.

I know what you mean. At school the computers (they’re so old that the internals have already started to fossilize) are run at 800x600, you can't change it to anything else due to the wonderfulness of administrative restrictions. The Macromedia MX 2004 Suite is practically unusable, you can never have any palettes, sidebars, toolbars showing in conjunction with one another because your workspace simply disappears into thin air. In frustrates the hell out of me, yay for public schools and adequate funding.

I use Corel (vector & print), Adobe (bitmap) and Macromedia (web) products together and combining two packages would help me out majorly because I’m too darn lazy to learn new programs instead !

 

[Jordan]

I’d have to agree, I don’t see how you could call Photoshop overrated at all, it’s a dream program! I’ve never had any problems with it, apart from it’s hunger for resources and astronomical price.

I just don't understand why so many people feel this way about Photoshop. You see, I'm extremely quick to learn the ins and outs of any program, and I know Fireworks exceptionally well. Finally, I got curious one day and spent an entire afternoon with Photoshop. Honestly, it was about the most frustrating and nonsensical program I've ever worked with.

I don't know, maybe my brain is just wired differently, or something - because nobody else seems to feel that way (with the exception of my mother: a photographer who also still finds Photoshop difficult after several classes). On the other hand, after playing around with Flash for just a few hours, I was able to create all of the animations I wanted. It was very difficult, yes, but at least it made sense to me.

 

[ALPHA]

I just don't understand why so many people feel this way about Photoshop. You see, I'm extremely quick to learn the ins and outs of any program, and I know Fireworks exceptionally well. Finally, I got curious one day and spent an entire afternoon with Photoshop. Honestly, it was about the most frustrating and nonsensical program I've ever worked with.

I know how you feel. I began using Illustrator for two weeks began to get frustrated with what I could achieve (I could only learn so much so quickly) and gave up. It’s not that it was too difficult to learn, it’s that the transition was extremely awkward.

I first came across Photoshop when it was at version 4 (it came bundled with our scanner), at the age of ten the only thing I really liked doing on the computer was toying with cheesy games and filling in time with MS Paint. I found Photoshop on the computer and discovered it couldn’t do what I wanted it to do, so I used Ulead PhotoImpact instead. I was quietly satisfied for a while until I discovered my parents had bought a book on Photoshop so I got busy and started learning what the program was all about, much the same way as I had already taught myself Corel DRAW.

I can see why I had so much trouble learning Illustrator, I don’t have that “I want to learn for the fun of it” attitude, more of the, “I need to learn it now” ideology. I also didn’t have a pretty book to follow nor time to fluff about with it, I mean so much more occupies time in my life. I was already used to DRAW’s vectoring tools and found that with Illustrator’s I had to fiddle about so much more to achieve the same basic shape. I guess being used to what you like is what’s important, if you don’t need to change programs, then why do it?

On an interesting note, anyone remember Corel acquiring Jasc? Nothing or a combination of products has been seen yet and a jasc.com visit simply takes you to a Corel page listing Jasc’s products.

I found Q&A document with the following:

5Q. Are there plans to integrate Jasc functionality into any of Corel’s existing product lines?
5A. Corel will continue to market the Paint Shop family as stand alone products. We will, over time, evaluate how the rich product portfolios can be integrated to meet the evolving needs of our growing customer base. We anticipate that there will be potential, over the long term, to offer broader, integrated suites.

I reckon a similar thing is going to happen here, I don’t suppose Adobe would want to go and upset anybody just yet .

 

[crazyazn7412]

w/e...doesnt matter. in conclusion this is just flat out bad news

 

[emad]

w/e...doesnt matter. in conclusion this is just flat out bad news

Care to explain? From a business perspective, it's the best move ever (well, they paid a bit much for Macromedia, but still). From an artist's perspective, it has it's good sides and it's bad sides. The 2 concerns are whether or not fireworks will stay (I'll bet anything that it will) and whether or not the prices of Macromedia products will rise (likely). If Adobe plays it smart, they'll be able to go about integrating the Adobe and Macromedia programs to create something incredible sometime over the next few years.

Of course, you won't be seeing any of the effects of this take-over for at least another 2 years or till not the next, but the release after the ones for 2006 arrive. The 2006 releases would already be on the board and they wouldn't shut down Macromedia's production team. It's a waste of cash and resources.

 

[Pako]

I just don't understand why so many people feel this way about Photoshop. You see, I'm extremely quick to learn the ins and outs of any program, and I know Fireworks exceptionally well. Finally, I got curious one day and spent an entire afternoon with Photoshop. Honestly, it was about the most frustrating and nonsensical program I've ever worked with.

I don't know, maybe my brain is just wired differently, or something - because nobody else seems to feel that way (with the exception of my mother: a photographer who also still finds Photoshop difficult after several classes). On the other hand, after playing around with Flash for just a few hours, I was able to create all of the animations I wanted. It was very difficult, yes, but at least it made sense to me.

This is exactly how I feel. I have TRIED to learn Photoshop, mainly because it seems to be a standard. Fireworks has always 'made sense' with the tools and the program layout. Photoshop on the other had is bass ackwards at best.

Might have to just bite the bullet, but will use Fireworks until it is completely obsolete. Maybe Google will come out with a good graphical editing suite, simple but effective.