Adobe acquires Macromedia

While the news that Adobe has acquired Macromedia isn't necessarily the latest news (Nov/Dec 2005), it's interesting to consider what this acquisition means. Will Macromedia stick around? Will our favorite, and industry leading favorites, such as Flash and Dreamweaver survive?

To answer some of these questions I turned to Adobe's site. Thankfully they have already considered what many of our questions will be, and they've provided a good faq about it. http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia_faq.html

To answer a couple immediate questions, yes "Macromedia" will die. Say buh-bye to the name we've all come to know so well. Apparently there will be an Adobe Flash or Adobe Dreamweaver in our near future. From what I can tell, Flash will live, and so will Dreamweaver, and for now it looks like most of the former Macromedia labels will live on.

My question is who will win out over time in the competitive labels such as GoLive vs Dreamweaver, Photoshop vs Fireworks, Illustrator vs Freehand. It seems to me like it would be redundant to keep similar software, and a waste of resources, but how will Adobe make their decision as to what stays and what goes? Will we see blended software? Will I work with a Flash interface that looks like Adobe? I can only guess at this point, and hope that my personal favorites win out!

Finally, why oh why didn't I buy Adobe stock years ago?