Comments on: Adobe aquires Macromedia

By: toyer90

toyer90 — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, I didn’t see that one coming! I can’t see how it’s going to help the design/web/etc fields though.

By: sgrosvenor

sgrosvenor — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

This is phenomenal news, but has to be approved by government regulators and sharholders of both companies before the merger, so eagerly watch the blogs and newswires as more information comes out.

What does this mean for diluted products such as GoLive and Freehand? In the short term, not a lot I'm sure, but if the merger comes off, then I'm sure there will be product trimming and alignment and they will go. The mainstays, Flash, Coldfusion, Flex, and Dreamweaver will hopefully continue to be developed, whilst the battle between ImageReady and Fireworks MX 2004 looks like a one horse race....

But like I said, its early days, lets sit back and watch the story unfold

By: cranial-bore

cranial-bore — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Buy some Adobe shares ;)

By: Mark Harbottle

Mark Harbottle — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I'm pretty sure the anti-competitive laws exist to stop competitors merging to create a single company which has a monopoly on a marketplace. You still have Microsoft and others which compete in this space to some extent, so I reckon it will get up!

By: Chip D

Chip D — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I thought this was some kind of bizarre joke when I first saw the headline, but apparently not.

I reckon this will go one of two ways, either

a) it will be hugely beneficial to the web producing community as it will allow for a nice, similar GUI between all of the major apps.

b) The attempt to merge all of the apps fails miserably and they end up ruining all of the flagship titles.

I like to see myself as a positive thinker, but realistically, I don't hold out much hope for option a) coming true.

By: stonercreek

stonercreek — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Hmmm…. Microsoft IE and Netscape to merge? Makes about as much sense as this one.

By: ct_roy

ct_roy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

think this one will end up in the courts re: anti-competitiveness. surely this can onyl be bad for the webdev industry? agreed - having a single standard for apps would/is be great. but thats what we have the W3C for.

having a single vendor will undoubtedly affect the speed of innovation we have seen from both macromedia and adobe with their web products in recent years.

By: charmedlover

charmedlover — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I wish I could buy some Adobe shares because their going to be dominating the market. In the US aren't monopolies illegal? I know Microsoft had issues with that.

By: Octal

Octal — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I'd like to know what loophole in the anti-competitive law they are exploiting to go ahead with this merger/aquisition

By: RockyShark

RockyShark — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I see more negatives here than positives. If it goes through, I can see prices going up and software development/improvement slowing down. Not good.

I think it will probably go through though. They can argue that other companies are established in the industry (even though they don't have the dominance) so it won't actualy be a monopoly. Having said that though - I don't really know what the law is in the US.