adobe.com — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) and Macromedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced they have either received or been notified they will receive all regulatory clearances necessary to complete Adobe's pending acquisition of Macromedia. The companies expect to close the transaction on December 3, 2005.
Dec 2, 2005 View in Crawl 4
alexanderhazardDec 2, 2005
Farewell fireworks...I loved thee so
spectreDec 2, 2005
This is bad news for anybody that designs for the web. We're screwed. I can see it now: Adobe Complete for $3500.00. There's no damn competetion now. and don't start spouting Gimp or any Open Source solutions. Right now, with this merger, all the critical development programs are bundled. Ouch.
anti_hax0rDec 2, 2005
greg-j is probably right, why would Adobe buy the competition, then kill it when it was more popular? Why not just keep selling it and developing it as is to increase their profits. This has nothing to do with Microsoft as KoZo is speculating way up there, more to do with Apple's content creation acquisitions of late which puts them in direct competition with Apple. What's more, Microsoft should be looking at purchasing Adobe now and keep them as a seperate arm and stop making Apple products like Apple has done with so many pieces of software (Shake, FCP, Spruce Technology DVD, etc).
dominicbusinaroDec 2, 2005
I think it would be great to "jump" from Photoshop => Image Ready => Dreamweaver.
leftfootDec 3, 2005
This sounds great! Macromedia has their VERY successful pieces of software (Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Director, and Coldfusion), and Adobe has their very good software as well (Photoshop, Premier, Audition, Elements). This can only be good from web designers and multimedia makers! I Really hope this turns out well, and we can hope to see some great products coming soon.
greg_jDec 3, 2005
@iheartbeer:For starters, the correct terminology is Raster and Vector. Regardless of the purposes, Freehand is very much in the same category as Photoshop simply because they are used to accomplish the same goals. As we graphic designer I would look at both of them to do the same thing. As web graphics designer I would again look at both programs to do the same thing, as they are both suited to do both. Furthermore, Photoshop's support of vectors is definately good enough to directly compete with Freehand if you have even a modicum of skill. Most of us have tablets larger than a standard piece of paper, which negates the need for the vector support that Freehand offers.
japanmoranDec 3, 2005
Sweet. Gonna put all my Macromedia swag on eBay.
motionblurDec 4, 2005
HomeSite > DreamweaverDreamweaver is for pussies.
thebogDec 4, 2005
..no this is bad.. for those of you that were taught Illustrator in school, and are loyal to AI - I'm sorry, Freehand Is a much better program, did you know freehand was the first design app that let you import Tiff files? The first to flow text, paragraph text, algorithmic blends....Because Aldus didn't give it to schools... I hope someone with a good marketing plan buys it from Adobe and continues to uphold a truly great page/design package...... Seriously - AI - CS2 and Legacy text! What the heck where they thinking???? Try to charge that back to your customers... Dumb, dumb, dumb....
zecnobotDec 31, 2005
Well, AJAX came along just in time, coupled with DHTML and JS you could make equivalent flash-styled content. Perhaps someone will develop a WYSIWYG for this...------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Women are like fishermen. They're always complaining about the one they caught, and always bragging about the ones that got away.
dugestyleDec 20, 2006
One more thing.. Freehand can be used as a small print publishing program as well.. It has the capability for multiple pages like the now dead Page Maker It also has Dot pattern control that I have yet to figure out in Illustrator.. In Freehand I can change the size of the dot pattern on and individual shape with in the same file and separation. This works great for screen prints. Yet another reasont not to ever ever ever compare it to Photoshop ever EVER!