DIGG IT! This is great news in my book. It can only mean great things for rich media technologies and for the future of Flash ,Flex, FlashCom, JRun, and ColdFusion.&
Adobe is a 600% larger company by market cap standards.
Adobe has 1.47B in cash to Macromedia's 340.88M.
Adobe is not buying Macromedia to dismantle products, they are buying it for the future of rich media, Flash. Flash as a medium is going to get huge and now it stands to be better funded and nurtured from the combined resources of a much larger company. We will see great products emerge that utilize the Flash Player as a medium and provide a wider range of creative uses. Rich media just got allot richer.
In the public markets, Adobe and Macromedia are comparables. Each companies stock price is gauged on the other in relative terms. Analysts pick apart every press release and earnings statement of these two companies looking for something discern who is leading or if the market has changes.
5 Year comparision chart MACR and ADBE
This merger ends the public and private competition that these two companies have waged against one another. The two have sued each other with regularity over patent infringement and technology related issues. All of these distractions will disappear and allow the merged company to focus on rich media and communication.
The world wants rich media and putting 7 times more resources behind Flash seems like a very good start to me.
Flash is going to get huge. There is a very big wave coming, lets go for a ride!
Cheers,
Ted ;)
Adobe doesn't have the best track record when it comes to quality. They are shipping bloatware as we speak to boot. :(
e.dolecki
To be honest, I don't think about innovation and emerging new products when I think about Adobe. Ok, historically I do, but not contemporary. Not compared to Macromedia. I still want to be clear about what this means for Central?
Daniel, Adobe purchased the Flash franchise. This only means good things for Flash and Flash related technologies.
Desktop applications is a key aspect of the future of Flash.
Ted ;)
Ted, we both understand the importance of Central. Not everyone does.
Alas, Mike Chambers didn't mention Central in his announcement. He did talk about Flash being driven by the larger revenue of Adobe. But does anyone have a comparison on how much the two companies spend on research and development?
People are talking about products being consolidated (See eric's blog). With the Sword of Damocles hanging over them - this might make the Macromedia crew less likely to take risks. Less speculation and innovation.
We live in changing times. Macromedia had what it takes to adapt - I'd hate to see that restrained.
Good points. It should be noted that the merger has more to do with Longhorn than Flash. Acrobat + FlashPaper vs. Microsoft's upcoming Metro product. (check
this out). I think the impact on Flash will be ancillary, but positive.
I agree that the merger probably has a lot to do with Longhorn. But Flash/Central is much more powerful than just a static document player. That's like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I could write a Flash RIA that enables a user to write a FlashPaper document. But you couldn't produce a .pdf document that allows you to write .pdf documents.
My point? Flash is ubiquitous and compact - but the most awesome feature is the ability to program it.
So forget about just reading documents, tabulated data, forms, graphs etc. The internet is interactive. Documents on the internet should be interactive - RIAs!
No argument here. I think we're talking about two separate issues.
This explains it pretty solidly.
Thanks for that link. I've bookmarked it. And Cochrane's Blog! - I used to work for him at BT labs :)
I think we're talking about the same issue. Except for I expect from an internet document format (as opposed to a static print document)? What would be its capabilities? This is why I put more emphasis on Central, Flex, Flash itself etc., rather than FlashPaper.
Read this too.