Adobe and Macromedia

2005-04-18 Software

Adobe and Macromedia jointly announced today that Adobe is to acquire all Macromedia stocks for approx $3.4 billion. This will make them in effect a huge creative monopoly with Adobe getting all the nice frontend developer tools that they found so hard to make themselves. Apparently though, this merger will not happen until approved by the stock holders and government regulators for obvious reasons.

For more information I recommend reading the Adobe FAQ:

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html

Macromedia’s press release is here:

http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/pr/2005/adobe_macromedia.html

Adobe’s press release here:

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.htmlt

Personally I think that although a massive player is not always good for an industry, for creatives it will mean new benefits in bring together Flash, Flex, Photoshop, After Effects, Acrobat, and many more tools of the trade – and hopefully most will get the Adobe interface the two players have been fighting over for the last few years.