Adobe + Macromedia = Holy Cow!

Adobe acquires Macromedia … Who woulda thunk it?

As unfathomable as the deal might have one time seemed, it was inevitable. Adobe will be a noble steward of Macromedia’s software stash.

There’s much speculation among the industry and press over which programs will stay and which might go.

Don’t expect the federal regulators to raise an eyebrow, as they did when Adobe acquired Aldus, all those years ago. This time, Freehand might just stay under the Adobe roof, alongside Illustrator, Photoshop and Fireworks … At least for a while …

On the web design front, it’s likely that GoLive and Dreamweaver will co-exist, as well. Adobe has supported three DTP page layout apps (PageMaker, Frame, and InDesign) for quite some time. Supporting two web design apps–with different target markets–isn’t out of the question.

Is this deal primarily about Flash? That’s hard to say, but at least we have an inkling why Adobe deep sixed LiveMotion. (Not to mention the hope for an updated SWF-format creation tool that fully meshes with the Adobe workflow.)