US Justice Dept clears Adobe takeover of Macromedia

[Bob Crabtree]

Adobe’s take over of Macromedia looks good to go, assuming Europe gives permission

Adobe and Macromediatoday announced they have received clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice for Adobe’s proposed acquisition of Macromedia. The closing of the transaction remains subject to regulatory approval in a few European jurisdictions.

Check it out in HEXUS.lifestyle Press Releases, and tell us below what you think of Adobe's latest acquisition.

[shiato storm]

well, could be ok depending on what adobe does with macromedia...its flash program is web-wide so I can't see that changing in a hurry. perhaps they'll merge programs together for building up another creative suite i.e. photoshop, imageready and flash all together for web designers? its hard to say as adobe have; PS, IR, illustrator and several other programs, whilst macromedia has flash, fireworks, dreamweaver etc... there are many similarities but also many notable differences. it will be interesting to see what gets ditched and what stays. here's hoping that the result is as good as it should be.
alternatively adobe could merely stay as an umbrella company allowing macromedia to continue as it does now but to avoid in-house competition by selecting which products to continue or which to alter...

[Funkstar]

Didn't Adobe just buy them because they feared MS would?

[Stoo]

I'd imagine the dominant package in each area will lead, whilst the others get dropped, or merged into "value" packages..

These to stay:
Photoshop
Dreamweaver
Illustrator
Flash
Acrobat

These to go or get merged into "new" products:
GoLive
Fireworks
FreeHand

I think coldfusion will pretty much die a death after the merger (i.e., see little development, and eventually fade into history)

[Xaneden]

Fireworks is a great program, but I can't see it competing with the functionality of Photoshop.

[Funkstar]

yeah i would guess Illustrator would get any Flash specific elements of Freehand integrated into it, no point in having two huge vector packages.

What about Homesite? would be good if that got spun off again, still not sure what the point of macromedia buting it was, they hardly did anything with it. Used to use that years ago, was the best i found at web markup.