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There are two possible reactions that creative professionals could have to the announcement of Adobes planned acquisition of Macromedia. The first is probably one I cant print here without the use of profanity.
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.
Its probably a good deal for Macromedia, too, from a fiduciary sense. Stock valued at $3.4 billion is nothing to shake a Wacom tablet pen at. And most of Macromedias customers are already Adobe customers.
So everybody wins, right?
Well, no.
Like I said, Macromedias customers are mostly Adobes customers already. I use Dreamweaver and Studio MX, and I use Photoshop and InDesign. The products in Macromedias portfolio that overlap with Adobes—Fireworks and Freehand, for example—are strong, but not so strong that most designers and illustrators would pick them over Photoshop, ImageReady or Illustrator when taken by themselves.
But at least Ive got the choice right now. Its pretty clear that a whole bunch of products are going to get voted off the Adobe-Macromedia island shortly.