Adobe, Macromedia v MS?
p2pnet.net News:- “Adobe, which built its name on the PDF format for printable digital documents, has long struggled to make an impact in the purely digital realm, where Macromedia has its roots.
“Now, with Macromedia’s Flash animation and application-development software in its portfolio, Adobe has positioned itself as a primary competitor against Microsoft on the one hand and open standards on the other in building new platforms for web applications.”
So says silicom.com on the news that Adobe plans to acquire Macromedia in deal worth $3.4 billion.
The deal still has to be approved by both boards of directors, but under it, Macromedia stockholders will receive, at a fixed exchange ratio, 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock in a tax-free exchange.
Is this a case of all’s well that ends well?
“In the late 1990s, the companies started encroaching on each other’s turf more and more,” says silicom.com.
“To compete with Macromedia’s high-end Dreamweaver web-authoring software, Adobe launched its ill-fated GoLive title. To compete with Adobe’s dominant Illustrator software for graphics professionals, Macromedia introduced Freehand and Fireworks.
“Adobe also tried to invade Macromedia’s dominion by throwing its weight behind the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Scalable Vector Graphics recommendation, conceived as a standard Flash alternative. More recently, Macromedia took at nibble at PDF with its Flash Paper offering.”
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See:-
silicom.com – Adobe-Macromedia alliance takes fight to Microsoft, April 19, 2005
to be approved – Adobe and Macromedia, p2pnet, April 18, 2005
