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Adobe Buying Macromedia -- Creative Consolidation

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from the sooner-or-later... dept

Mon, Apr 18th 2005 3:27am — Mike Masnick
With so much happening in the online world concerning images, graphics and publishing, it's been sort of interesting to watch both Adobe and Macromedia sort of stand aside and watch, without getting too involved. Both companies seem to have flashes of brilliance, but then also appear to be slow and a bit behind on various things happening online. It looks like the two will try to figure out where they're going together, as Adobe has announced plans to buy Macromedia for $3.4 billion. Of course, taking two different companies that both seem to have vision problems, and combining them, doesn't always do much for the combined entity. In fact, the time and effort spent combining can often lead the companies to take their eyes off the ball. However, given both companies dominant positions in certain areas, a well-executed merger certainly could do well. It's just a question of how well the plan can be executed.
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  • identicon
    Tristan Louis, 18 Apr 2005 @ 8:23am

    Product Rundown

    I just did a rundown of the impact of this acquisition on different products. You can find it here on TNL.net

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Adrian Anders, 18 Apr 2005 @ 12:49pm

    Spetacular failures in software mergers. Case in p

    A few years back, Sonic Foundry was a top performing software company with a focus on audio software (and later video with Vegas). Going through a rough patch, they were later acquired by Sony in the view that Sonic Foundry products could integrate into the fabric of Sony hardware to create a dynamic creative solution. Today Sony's software division is a total wreak. With the exception of Vegas, all of the former Sonic Foundry products are floundering under numerous bugs, non-functional features, and a leadership who has failed to live up to the goals planned with the initial acquisition. Case in point, before the acquisition of Sonic Foundry, Sony produced a line of audio plug-ins for digidesign's (avid) pro-tools HD systems called Oxford. To date, these plug-ins have yet to be made available in a format that their own damn plug-in host software can use (i.e. Acid and Sound Forge). Further points can be made by the partnership between Sony/Steinberg for the new ASIO 2.0, despite the fact that they are now direct competition, as well as the "Mastering Suite" sometimes offered in VAIO computers despite the lack of proper integration with "SonyFoundry" software. In other words, the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, thus leading to conflicts within the company over direction. Hopefully because Adobe lacks a hardware division, this situation won't happen to Macromedia, but it just goes to show that to make acquisitions work a company needs to do more than buy the assets and re-brand the software of another company. Bug-free integration is of critical importance to a good merger/acquisition.

    ATA

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Adam Bjornholm, 21 Apr 2005 @ 1:52pm

    Adobe

    I wonder if this deal means that with Adobe's concentration on design, the next iteration of Dreamweaver will be even less programmer friendly than the current one?

    [ link to this | view in chronology ]


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