Adobe's Macromedia takeover clears final hurdle

Adobe Systems' multibillion-dollar takeover of rival software developer Macromedia has received regulatory clearance and is expected to be completed Saturday.

Adobe announced late Thursday that it and Macromedia have either received or been notified they will receive all regulatory clearances necessary to complete the acquisition, which will cost Adobe $3.4 billion.

This follows an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, which requested additional information on both companies' Web-authoring, design and vector graphics illustration products.

Adobe also said it would discuss the combined company's fiscal 2006 outlook on Dec. 15.

The takeover was announced in April, when Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen promised to yield cost savings. This sparked speculation that some software applications could be axed once it was completed.

In the graphics market, Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator are the market leaders ahead of Macromedia's competing Fireworks and Freehand. In Web design, Macromedia has the established DreamWeaver against Adobe's more recent GoLive product.

Graeme Wearden of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[ndrtek_rob]

Flash Sucks

God Bless Adobe

[System Tyrant]

Well...

I like Photoshop and Indesign. Pretty much everything else sucks at Adobe including the CEO (who has to be the ugliest person alive). Well, I do like PDF's.

As far as flash sucking... that's your opinion and I would be willing to bet not one shared by the majority.

[originalbitman]

It the UI that sucks most

Macromedia can learn a lot about good consistent UI from Adobe.

[ob1coyote]

Ignorance is bliss

I am a great fan of Adobeand Macromedia. I know that Adobe can improve many of the Macromedia products, I just hope they don't axe half of them.

Flash Sucks? Well consider the source.

[Stan Johnson]

You obviously don't use Flash...

If you did you would see that Flash is possibly the main reason Adobe is buying Macromedia. Adobe was using Flash on its own website before this deal was finalized. Flash is great!

[Earl Benser]

Just about in time....

.... I've eliminated all Adobe software except PageMaker 6.5. And
maybe I will keep my copy of Dreamweaver. But other than those
two, no more Adobe products for me. After all, I am not one of
those highly qualified professionals that Adobe cares about. I am
with the rest of the world that Adobe doesn't care about. And I sort
of like it that way.

[Thunder Johny]

no more Adobe

http://www.analogstereo.com/saturn_vue_owners_manual.htm

[aabcdefghij987654321]

Just when I was falling in love

Just when I was falling in love with everything Macroemdia has to offer - they go and let Adobe in. All I can say is they better not touch Coldfusion. I use Macromedia Homesite - so if they make that program a memory sucker - I guess I can always revert back to notepad...

[SqlserverCode]

The death of Fireworks and Freehand?

The death of Fireworks and Freehand?
I personally like Fireworks, makes things a little easier for someone who is not a designer compared to photoshop. I doubt that they will keep both. Look what happened to ColdFusion Studio and Kawa after Macromedia took over Allaire back in 2001

http://otherthingsnow.blogspot.com/

[webdev511]

KEEP Fireworks!

You wouldn't till a suburban backyard garden with a full size farm tracktor, would you?

Same goes for Photoshop. It's overpriced overkill for web graphics. I'm never going to retouch photos for print, and would likely use less than 5% of what photoshop can do. Of course Adobe would put out a lower priced version, but conveniently remove some of the features I require. Huh, funny that.

[ChasmoeBrown]

Very Sad

Adobe's gonna screw it up. It's not an anti-Adobe or pro-
Macromedia thing. It's just what seems to happens every time.
What Adobe doesn't jettison they will cannabalize - imagine
GoLive with DreamWeaver features - new and "improved". All
because it's business - if you can't beat 'em, buy 'em - and so
the technical decisions will be made from a business standpoint.

Maybe a little hope, though, if the Macromedia people that are
canned would band together and start over. If they do, using
the lessons learned of course, it could be a very good thing.

(Looks like I'll be stuck at HomeSite 5.5 for a very long time.)

[Bob_Barker]

Boooo!

h8 at Adobe. Now the Macromedia line is going to turn into bloat-ware like everything Adobe puts out.

[golfben86]

Look at History, this is a good move

Adobe has a history of acquiring smaller software companies
and streamlining their ambitious software into multifaceted
tools which communicate with the rest of Adobe's programs
easily. Audition, Premeiere, and InDesign all originated at places
other than Adobe, and through the years Adobe has brought
these programs to life in the marketplace by offering a
recognizeable user interface and compatability with industry
leading Adobe tools. Many of you seem to think that the
acquision of Macromedia will lead to the end of Dreamweaver; I
disagree, Adobe is smart and knows that the Dreamweaver name
holds more clout in the web devloping community and will likely
fuse the extra features of GoLive into the next version of Adobe
Dreamweaver.

[Earl Benser]

And I'll never know....

... because Adobe has made it clear that it doesn't want me as a
customer. Nor does it want any other non-professionals as
customers. So be it.

[System Tyrant]

Not the end of Dreamweaver.

Actually I don't think anybody really thinks it's the end of Dreamweaver. More like we think it's the end of a quality dreamweaver.

Don't get me wrong I like Photoshop and InDesign, but I just would prefer Adobe to leave Macromedia alone. I don't care that Adobe bought Macromedia, but I would prefer Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks to maintain their look and feel. I don't want Dreamweaver to look like Photoshop. Dreamweaver has a very fluid design and it works.

I don't know if this transistion will be bad or not, but I would prefer not to find out.

[VI Joker]

Not to sure about this one

This is definately one of those mergers that you have wait till the dust settle before you think of what changes will happen. I agree with the notion that it would be foolhardy for Adobe to drop either Fireworks or Dreamweaver. They have a lot of developer recognition and acceptance, but business sometimes wins over technology so time will tell how it plays out. More than likely Dreamweaver and Fireworks will be offered as scaled down versions of Pagemaker and Photoshop. As long as they do not do much to Dreamweaver and Fireworks I think all will go well.

[webdev511]

Very little needs to change

Yes, there will be the requsite merge of hr/finance/it/marketing etc, but that happens with every merger.

If the new management is smart, they will change VERY little when it comes to product lines. Yes, there's overlap with Illistrator/Freehand, Dreamweaver/GoLive, and some would say Photoshop/Fireworks (I disagree on that one). Some products will benefit from integration, others will get new features to ignore.

This is a good move for Adobe, but I really don't think Macromedia needed to do this. Quarter after Quarter profits post bubble and high endorsement rate of the Flash/Breeze platform were more than enough to keep me happy as a stockholder. Adobe is far less stable with thier income streams.

Time will tell if it was a good move, or bad.

[mcthingy2]

That's the Most Dumb Thing I've read in a While

Adobe's just had two record years of profit and their stock is up
3 fold in the last three years. Adobe's margins are much higher
than Macromedia's (almost double). Look up their balance
sheets and compare and contrast before you give us your
"analysis".

[Dachi]

I can't wait

I can't wait till flash player runs on system startup and starts nagging me to download updates everytime I surf to a site using it. Outside of photoshop, Macromedia's products just seem to be a more professional grade.

This is sad.

[System Tyrant]

Yeah this sucks.

You know if Adobe would leave Macromedia alone and let it continue in it's current form that would be great. But, I think in time Adobe will shut down and fire most of the employees at Macromedia and turn dreamweaver and flash into crap like some of Adobe's other products. Before long Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks will looke like Photoshop and work like GoLive.

Fortunatly for all of us their are other companies ready to fill the void left when Macromedia becomes apart of Adobe. They may not be as good as Macromedia's stuff, but at least they will work.