I don’t know how I feel about this, but Adobe and Macromedia announced that Adobe was buying Macromedia for around 3.4 billion. My gut reaction is that this could be very bad for the design market as these two companies were basically direct competitors. I keep thinking how much I disliked Go Live versus Dreamweaver and shudder at the innovation that wouldn’t have happened in the market if these two companies were fighting for market share.
I hope the new company can maintain its focus on both sets of people that have traditionally been serviced by one or the other company: Adobe was squarely aimed at the design professional where Macromedia had web development in its pocket. There’s always crossover, but given the Photoshop/Fireworks or Go Live/Dreamweaver choice, you could usually predict where the decision would fall.
It will be interesting to see this pan out (if it does).
Ars Technica – Adobe gobbles up Macromedia in pure-stock buy out worth 3.4 Billion Dollars