Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

buy, buy, buy

This was a bit of a shock to read this morning:

Adobe to Buy Macromedia in $3.4 Billion Stock Deal
By Terence Neilan

Published: April 18, 2005

The document-design software company Adobe Systems Inc. said today that it had agreed to acquire the multimedia software firm Macromedia Inc. for about $3.4 billion in stock.

Adobe, which is based in San Jose, Calif., and is best known for its Acrobat document sharing software, said the deal is expected to close this fall.

“Customers are calling for integrated software solutions that enable them to create, manage and deliver a wide range of compelling content and applications - from documents and images to audio and video,” Bruce Chizen, chief executive of Adobe, said in a statement.

(New York Times: “Adobe to Buy Macromedia in $3.4 Billion Stock Deal” - 04/18/05)

• Adobe statement about the purchase
• Macromedia press release

Adobe and Macromedia’s products are my tools for working on the Web. Adobe makes the graphics programs I use most — Photoshop, Acrobat — while Macromedia produces the Web-based applications I rely on — Dreamweaver, Flash — and the illustration program Freehand (a direct competitor to Adobe Illustrator).

The last I heard (a couple years ago), Adobe and Macromedia were sniping at each other in a patent dispute over how their toolboxes work. Interesting that Adobe’s buying its biggest competitor. I’m not sure yet what I think of it. The fact that this purchase would give Adobe more or less a monopoly over the computer graphics market (given that it now owns all the dominant software) makes me a bit uneasy.