Note: Homesite+ is already dead. - Calvin
-----Original Message----- From: Jim Davis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 2:04 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: RE: macromedia and Adobe?! > -----Original Message----- > From: Kym Kovan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 3:58 AM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: macromedia and Adobe?! > > The macromedia Home Page looks interesting...... For what it's worth after reading all these threads across many lists: First off this isn't a merger. It's an acquisition pure and simple (in fact while the Macromedia site says "merger" the Adobe site says "acquisition"). This is exactly what happened with Allaire/Macromedia by the way. Macromedia is, from the ground up, an online-centric company. Its tools and services are all for online use. Adobe is, from the ground up, a print-based/traditional media company: all of its online work has been added to print-based tools. In other words Adobe's bread and butter is traditional media while Macromedia's is new media. The merger makes perfect sense in that respect but where these two ideas cross is where the sparks will fly. I think that this is where the real battle lines will be drawn in this merger. To say, at this point, that ANY product will be eliminated is just plain guessing. If I had to make a prediction it would be something like the following, but of course as the senior management of any company can be quite literally insane anything could happen: +) ColdFusion is safe. It's a less popular product that its competition, to be sure, but it's more than popular enough to pay for its development and promotion and earn a profit. There's no overlap between CF and another Adobe tool. It'll stay - I predict with very little change to the teams or upgrade schedules - just as it is. +) Dreamweaver is safe but will get the treatment. It currently accounts for something like 80% of corporate web development - you don't throw numbers like that away. However Dreamweaver will get more bloated as compatibility with Adobe tools is added in (as was done when Dreamweaver was modified to "replace" CF Studio/Homesite) - Dreamweaver will end up as part of the "Adobe Creative Suite". +) Flash is safe. It's the primary target for the acquisition - it's staying put. Again it may get more bloated to provide compatibility with Adobe products, but the Flash player will probably end up being the least affected product. The Flash editor however might get the same treatment that DreamWeaver gets and end up as part of the "Adobe Creative Suite". +) Flashpaper isn't safe. Although it clearly has a niche to fill that Acrobat doesn't address I think the corporation will shitcan Flashpaper. The argument will be that Acrobat meets that need (even tho' it doesn't). +) Director is safe even tho' it's (now) more "traditional media" centric than other Macromedia tools. It's still a niche market, but one which it dominates. Again it pays for itself and earns a profit - it's not going anywhere. I do think that you'll see Director/Premier bundling happen sooner than later. +) Flex isn't safe (at least as it exists today). I think Flex's life depends on the adoption rate of the product. If Adobe sees Flex as an expensive niche market player (which we must agree it is) that requires a lot of legwork to make profitable (again, it seems like it does) they may just cut it to prevent future headaches. Even if that happens tho' I don't expect to see the technology behind Flex go away. It may be repurposed into a cheaper, more accessible form or added to other products. +) Smaller tools aren't safe. Things like HomeSite+, RoboHelp, Breeze, etc aren't safe just because of the corporate need to cut. The merged company will immediately attempt to show stockholders how concerned they are by eliminating redundancies - they will also throw at least a few sacrificial lambs on the altar of "streamlining". These smaller, niche products with little support will be the first to go. +) GoLive is dead. Dead. Dead. +) Freehand is almost certainly dead. Flash compatibility will be added to Illustrator and that's that (for that matter I'm surprised that Adobe hasn't just picked up Corel before now - I'm an ecstatic CorelDraw user but that company is like the walking dead). +) Most other Adobe products are safe: Acrobat, Premier, Photoshop, etc. They are all pretty much defacto standards in their areas. They're not going anyplace. That's about it. But my major prediction is that the real twisting of the knife will occur where there's an overlap in traditional and new medias - in that space anything can happen. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Find out how CFTicket can increase your company's customer support efficiency by 100% http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=49 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:203389 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
