Adobe Acquires Macromedia: Future of Existing Software Brands ?

Adobe Inc. will acquire Macromedia Inc. for approximately $3.4 billion. The new company will be called Adobe Systems, Inc. This has not occurred yet, and will not occur until approved by stockholders and government regulators. Until the close of transaction, the companies will continue to operate business and usual. The combined company will not be able to create a joint product roadmap until after the transaction is closed.

Macromedia Flash Paper which allows you to print any document to PDF or SWF format truly sums up the merger of two publishing giants. According to Joe, the Macromedia acquisition could extend Adobe's reach beyond browsers and operating systems to new platforms, such as cellular phones. Macromedia has had pretty good success wooing carriers to Flash. The presence is important, because there are many business functions for which a cell phone or PDA--and not a computer--would be the primary client. Macromedia's success with cell phone manufacturers and carriers could strengthen Adobe's position bringing document and collaboration technologies to new clients.

What would the meger mean to the rest of us ?

• All applications will get a standard interface and help system (probably generated from Robohelp)


• Less product choices will be available after a merger than the product choices currently available


• Might see SVG [adobe.com] support in Macromedia's Flash Player


• Adobe might introduce more choices for consumers like pro / lite versions just like they did with Adobe Creative Suite


• Adobe's Livemotion team might now focus on Macromedia Flash. Might support for exporting Illustrator files to Flash.


• The good features of Dreamweaver may be incorporated in Golive so we get best of both the worlds.


• Similar stuff may happen with Freehand / Illustrator and Photoshop/Fireworks/ImageReady


• Adobe will become the undisputed leader in traditional printing and online publishing tools - Might expect some anti-monopoly trials against them


• Photoshop and Flash will remain the same, since neither had competition from the other company (Livemotion is alread dead)


• Macromedia Captivate to get better support for capturing audio and video with support from Adobe Premiere and Audition teams


• Adobe Acrobat would support Macromedia Flash Paper technology


• Adobe might bring the flash-video mechanism to Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0


• The fate of Director is unknown - Still it is viewed as unncessary by many Flash gurus.


• Microsoft will surely loose sleep over this merger


• Corel and Quark may see their market share slipping away

Most of Adobe's software are general design tools, like Photoshop for 2d raster imaging, Illustrator for 2d Vector imaging, Premiere / After Effect for Video Editing and Indesign for Press + Layout. Macromedia's portfolio is mainly for online applications, like Director, Flash, Dreamweaver, ColdFusion etc. So in most of the cases, the companies products compliment each other, not fight for the same market.

Sean Gallagher is excited about the deal. Undoubtedly, the merged Adobe-Macromedia monolith will be able to bring an impressive array of technology to bear on the problems that face people trying to create content for nearly any medium. By assimilating Macromedia, Adobe gets the Web-oriented technologies it never could get any traction with itself—like the Dreamweaver Web site design and content management environment and Flash Web media platform—and eliminates the few semi-viable competitive products left in digital imaging and illustration.

Macromedia ate Allaire, Homesite, eHelp. Now Adobe ate Macromedia. Looks like the deal was done in a very short period of time. Why would Adobe release an updated Golive CS2 if it knew that Dreamweaver MX2004 was just an inch away?