As of today, one of the two major barriers to the Adobe/Macromedia merge has been overcome. Stockholders of both companies have voted over 99% in favour of the merge. This keeps the deal well on track for its anticipated completion in Fall 2005.
The one remaining hurdle is approval of the transaction by the US Department Of Justice (DOJ), which on July 11th issued a second request for information from the two companies as it evaluates the legality of the merger under antitrust regulations.
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Wow, this is really going to make things interesting.
I wonder what goodies are in store for the future software we use?
August 29th, 2005 at 1:05 am
yeah, because loss of competition in the marketplace is always a good thing
August 29th, 2005 at 3:49 am
It’ll be interesting to see what they’ll do … keep all the competing software they have or shutdown a product line :)
August 29th, 2005 at 6:38 am
I don’t think this is good. If they merge, then there is no worthy competition, prices go up, quality goes down!
It’s like an arms race…once there is no enemy, innovation stops. Things get old and expensive. I hope they do not approve of this…I think it would be bad.
August 29th, 2005 at 9:43 am
I hope they push the flashpaper product. I prefer it to Adobe Acrobat. Its very lightweight, and always works!
August 29th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
As an avid FreeHand user (always finding it the perfect blend of features for my needs–vector illustration, multipage ability, etc.), I’m fairly bummed about this. I doubt Adobe is going to retool Illustrator to accomodate multiple page layouts–why would they? Now those of us who used FreeHand to bridge the gap between page layout software and Vector illustration software will have to make the leap. I’ve already given my employers the heads up, and they’re panicking at the idea of laying out a load of cash so I can keep doing what I’m doing. > Ah well, time marches on. :-P
August 29th, 2005 at 10:05 pm
Illustrator CS2 can do multi-page work in a limited fashion using its page tiling feature. Set your Artboard to the size of all pages combined (e.g. to lay out two A4 pages horizontally, create a document 420mm x 297mm), then in File -> Print set the correct page orientation (e.g. Profile) and under Setup choose “Tile full pages”. Finally, choose View -> Show Page Tiling.
For full multi-page layout, Adobe InDesign is where it’s at. You create your artwork in Illustrator and then place it into pages with InDesign. Not quite as convenient as having all your drawing and layout tools in the same program, but InDesign’s page layout features are way more powerful than Freehand’s once you learn to use them.
August 29th, 2005 at 10:26 pm
but why would they not merge their products? is that not the purpose of the merger itself?
personally, I am looking forward to the refining of photoshops optimization features… it pales in comparison to Fireworks
have faith… they will come through for us
they better
August 30th, 2005 at 12:04 am
meanwhile… microsoft release acrylicII, with XAML support… XAML is sure to be a macromedia flash and adobe PDF document killer when it’s out next year.
it’s lucky that macromedia bailed out while they could!
August 30th, 2005 at 10:26 am
I feel that the main reason behind the merger is so adobe can obtain flash and dreamweaver. I would bet that they drop almost all of the Macromedia products that are not directly related to these two programs. At least the battles between me and my (raised on adobe) graphics partner will stop
August 31st, 2005 at 1:19 pm
Those I believe are destined to remain in existence are surely Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash and Cold Fusion with Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, AfterEffects and Premiere. I doubt that GoLive will continue to be developed alongside Dreamweaver (somewhat reminiscent of the LiveMotion/Flash issue), but what of Fireworks? It would be such a pity if it should simply blend with Photoshop and then disappear. Only time will tell…
August 31st, 2005 at 9:37 pm
I’ve never liked the merge since I’m an avid Fireworks user. I’ve never even come close to liking the layers way of doing things that Photoshop uses.
September 1st, 2005 at 12:08 am
(is it just me or is the login process to post here problematic? it throws me to a wordpress admin panel which I can’t navigate back here from)
Imagine… one program for all your basic graphic needs. How often do you site with both applications open (I do all the time)?It would also save us money in the long run as there would be only one piece of software to keep updated.
As long as they keep each softwares finer points (I would love to test the hybrid!!!!) I say bring it on.
September 5th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
I feel the same way. I don’t think this is good news – I hope it gets knocked back.
September 7th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
No, shouldn’t be doing that, cinn72. We’ll look at that.
September 7th, 2005 at 9:01 pm
I haven’t liked the idea since I got the original email from MM. As stated above competiton keeps things fresh as each company tries to get the upper hand. I think if this goes through things will start to get stale before long.
September 9th, 2005 at 1:17 am
Those of us who have used both GoLive and Dreamweaver know that Dreamweaver is the superior authoring product. Dreamweaver is more logicical in its operation and interface. Plus, it’s bundled with Homesite 5+, and from this old coder’s point of view, that in itself is marvelous.
Looking into my crystal ball I see the great white shark of software, Microsoft, circling, hungry as ever and wanting to do away with Adobe. Most are aware that Microsoft is cultivating products that are designed to go ‘head-to-head’ with Adobe’s and Macromedia’s. So, for survival’s sake, the Adobe-Macromedia merger is a smart move. Divided, the two companies would eventually buckle under from the relentless onslaught of Microsoft.
When I was queried by Adobe for my opinion as to the ideal ‘package’, I went for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Fireworks, Flash, Dreamweaver and, of course, the all-mighty Acrobat. It will be some time before Microsoft can put together a package that would beat that combination. Like when Hell freezes over.
But wait! The crystal ball also tells me that Google – yes Google – is attempting the unheard of: Google will present the world an operating system that will compete against Windows. I also see Google and Adobe becoming very cozy with each other, combining efforts to take market share from Microsoft. So, what’s missing in a possible Google-Adobe coalition? A suite of office programs. Welcome Corel to the coalition.
Crystal balls are so much fun!
September 9th, 2005 at 7:38 am
Microsoft has a tremendous uphill battle, web designers/developers don’t use frontpage and don’t want to.
If MS wants a piece of the pie, they really are going to have to innovate (or aquire) something new, you can’t just toss money at something and overcome a solid duo like Adobe/MM.
I wouldn’t buy MS stock is regards to web development … and trust me, i’m not a biased MS hater.
September 9th, 2005 at 9:45 am
a google operating system … now there is something you can trust from a company DEVOTED to aquiring data.
September 9th, 2005 at 9:46 am
Good post, DONMAC17.
Even before the merger, I would have doubted Microsoft would have been allowed to aquire Adobe, and best case scenario, it would have taken MS a decade to build a serious competing product to Photoshop.
Adobe has taken more than a decade to get to a stage where you might argue it genuinely challenges Quark for the layout crown it has owned since the mid 80’s. Quark have had no support and little else in way of offerings, but held their market for a very long time. Adobe are better prepared to defend PS than Quark ever were.
I pretty much agree with your ‘dream team’ of apps. I’m not quite so enamoured with Acrobat – I have a love/hate thing there — but I was glad to see Fireworks in your list, which I do have a soft spot for.
September 9th, 2005 at 9:54 am
No not really. The merger is about money not your and my favorite software.
In fact most of the time mergers don’t change anything other than the flow of money. Meaning, MM could very possibly continue on as MM with the same products etc… Only the profits are dumped into a new bank account with Adobe’s name on it. :)
September 9th, 2005 at 11:05 am
Acrobat is my bullet-proof transmission envelope. I especially am thankful for it when documents have to be passed around, commented on and signed. I really like the Notes feature.
September 9th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
I also agree on your top choices; those are the exact apps I use in my Graphics and Emedia courses.
September 9th, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Would you believe we can send our book covers to the printers in InDesign packages, EPS and AI but they won’t except PDF, because of inconsistencies? Although they are happy to accept the inside pages as PDF.
As much as I do appreciate it’s finer points, I’ve always had two issues with it.
1) It’s size. Even in the early years it was always 3-4MB. Far too big and slow for a thing that essentially reads text.
2) It’s habit of sneaking TSRs into your bootup without asking, to try to cover it’s launch slowness. Real Player and QT are the same. I don’t need to run a 24hr a day tray app for a program I may not even launch on a given day.
September 10th, 2005 at 12:28 am
How about a Photoshop CS specifically designed for site creation and included in the Dreamweaver Suite. A powerhouse Fireworks Mix between Photoshop, Fireworks and Flash; if you will. Now that’s a merger!
September 12th, 2005 at 2:12 pm
There are many software products that create PDFs much cheaper than Adobe Acrobat, some are even free ( however they might show adds or have limitations ).
Before purchasing an pricely Adobe Acrobat Proffessional, consider the cheaper alternatives ( personally I use:
http://www.amicutilities.com/pdf-writer/ – PDF Writer Pro ,
as it simply install itself as a printer driver, and I can print to it documents from different applications, forms, word documents, excel, scaned images, all will be converted to .pdfs )
It can also merge documents ( if the window is left open between prints ) I also tried some free ones but all had nasty limitations.
Ramona
July 31st, 2006 at 8:35 am
Now am facing one problem
i.e. When am trying to read data from a word file and need to write that data in the text area of HTML,Iam getting data but am not able get same format which I have in the word file.
Is there any one to help me
Thanks
Sanjeev
May 29th, 2007 at 12:04 am