Attached Link: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html

Wow! Really big news there. Hope Adobe would keep up the competitive drive rather then laying down and dying now that theyve bought out their biggest competitor in that field. Sometimes, these acquisitions arent as good as they sound for the consumer.

Take for instance Microsoft tag teaming with AOL to buy out Netscape only to keep it down out of Internet Explorers way and helping to keep Java cornered.

Message edited on: 04/19/2005 04:03

Aye, it's a good thing that Firefox came in when it did. Mozilla has sure put a big dent in Internet Explorer's usage, and mostly just by word-of-mouth. I think it's great that megalith companies like Adobe are growing fat, in the long run they will end up cracking like eggshells, and in the aftermath of THAT, perhaps we'll see the real technologies emerge... But then again, I've never really used any of Macromedia's software except for the viewing end of shock and flash...

Potoshop has gotten a bit Fat along with Adobe. I dont mind when companys add new features to improve software, I do mind when it is at the expense of performance. And why does every piece of software now need to connect to the web in some manner?

analog, to prevent piracy.

I'm not talking about Authenitcation / Verification most software do that quietly in the background. Its the ones that phone home and than pop up ads about new offeres available. I just want to load up notepad and type text without worrying about it phoning home to check for updates all the time, and to disable these features its usualy burried deep somewhere. Its nice to have these functions but its usualy a the expense of buggy software or performance. Thats it!!! I'm giving up Photoshop I'm going to load "Koala Paint" on my C64 ;)

:laughs at Analog! Koala RULED! I also enjoyed Doodle!, the first 16-color paint program I ever used... Maybe Adobe should buy the rights to THAT masterpiece?!?

I find this sad news as macromedia had good inovative programs like flash, dreamweaver, freehand and fireworks wich were much more web orientated then adobes.

Hmm...flash adobe documents..;)

Well that's interesting! I wonder what they'll do with Dreamweaver since they already own GoLive which is a web site creation tool like Dreamweaver.

Say goodbye to both Dreamweaver and Freehand! Both of which I own and use all the time...especially Freehand which is much easier to use than Illustrator.

Hmmm... That's funny. I never really had problems with Illustrator... And Macromedia was a bit problematic with product support at my school. (Well at least with the older Mac OS9 versioned stuff. School has updated since.) So now there's barely any competition... Now what? I wonder if they'll try to buy Notepad from M$. Will flash start using .ai files? Will there be any benefit to the consumer, or will Adobe abuse this virtual monopoly and raise prices across the board? Anyhow, I've still got the old versions of graphics software. --- And speaking of old graphics software, anyone remember RemBrandt (Atari) or PhotonPaint (Amiga).

For Amiga, I had DeluxePaint. :^)

Most people find Dreamweaver a much better program than GoLive which is often loaded with strange and redundant code. And I prefer Dreamweaver over GoLive and Im hoping that Adobe doesnt do with Dreamweaver what Microsoft and AOL did with Netscape. DeluxPaint, now thats an old and hearty paint program! LOL

Hmm..I had the same problem with Microsoft's offering (strange and redundant code..;)

GIMP! with the new gui GIMPSHOP for photoshop addicted (don't tell it to anyone, but it works fine on Linux too) - ARTGEM a masterpiece: child of Amiga's Deluxe Paint, discontinued because too few people could understand it's power few years ago (there is still a demo version in some mirror server, look around) - DOGWAFFLE a cool and cheap alternative worth a try (on sell here on renderosity, version 1.2 is free! and full working) and Netobjects Fusion a wysiwyg site editor cheap and perfect for designers like me who can't write a single line of html code. Believe me, it's possible to survive without Adobe and Macromedia products if you want

I dont see this as a good development. Iv'e alway used Illustrator over Freehand, but much prefer dreamweaver over golive. Hope they don't kill these programes off, though I can't see how they can keep them all going without competing with themselves.

Macromedia Dreamweaver is far better then GoLive for web code. And it supports web authoring for design people as well as coders.

Something always suffers in the wake of a merger. In the past I've used. C64 - Koala Paint / Doodle and something else I think it was called GEOS which ran inside the GEOS system. Amiga - Deluxe Paint / HAM Paint which allowed creating images with multiple images attached to Cubes or wrapped around Spheres. PC - Deluxe Paint / PC Paint Brush I think that is what it was called and used .PCX Format. Paint Shop Pro and PhotoShop. Deluxe Paint I think ran in DOS Mode. I loved using Deluxe paint to create stuff using Pixel Mode.

I only go back to '98 as far as computer experience, but I do remember Fractal Design Corporation with fondness. I snagged a copy of Detailer at a huge markdown while working for a defunct internet retail computer store. Then I got a copy of Painter 3D! Those were cool apps for their time, and a low cost alternative to the 3D paint/texture apps we have now. Too bad they were gobbled up by Metacreations.

Well yes, Analog-X, youre right, DeluxePaint was also made PC. It needed to be run in DOS. I still have the software here somewhere but doubt very much that it would recognize modern day CPU architecture. I use to love doing symmetrical kaleidoscope designs in Deluxepaint. It held one image in clipboard memory while you worked on another. I created a great oxidized greenish copper and rust texture using it. It may be here somewhere on diskIve got hundreds of diskettes with graphic files and animations which cannot be easily restored since they were backed-up with now outdated and obsolete backup programs.

yes deluxe paint was hot on amiga made some animations with it too

Macromedia got an offer they couldn't refuse. :-) I wouldn't refuse 3.4 billion dollars, either. This certainly means the death of Freehand. Fireworks might easily die, too. Adobe wouldn't pay 3.4 billions just to kill everything except Flash. I'd say this means the death of GoLive. Tons of people use Dreamweaver. Who uses GoLive? Adobe doesn't have anything like Contribute or Breeze, either. But it's known they are approximately the second in destroying programs after Corel. Although Macromedia is not blameless in that regard, either. Anybody remembers Fontographer?

Then there's the chance that they might break off the programs they don't want to keep and sell them to other companies, sort of like Metacreations did with Bryce and Poser, selling them to different companies. They probably wouldn't profit much from killing off any viable programs that other companies might pay for. Just a thought.

Dont know Tjohn, it stymies the competition and levels the playing field for them (Adobe). Again, like Microsoft did to Netscape, which I thought was the better browser at the time. Just knocks them out of the market. Adobe PhotoShop started as a McIntosh program in 90, got into Windows in 93. Face stiff competition from Aldus PhotoStyler. Adobe merged with Aldus in 94 and squashed PhotoStyler in late 94, I read somewhere that they thought it was redundant with Photoshop, but they kept its technology. Adobe just might see Freehand redundant to Illustrator and whack them off the market. It might certainly keep Flash due to its proliferation throughout the web.

I remember fontagrapher..I could never afford it..;)

Yep like tjohn I had deluxe paint ver. 4 not just 3 and an amiga. My amiga 500 had a blazing 7mhz processor. Interlaced 13 inch commador monitor that flickered so bad in high res that it would cause a headache. no hard drive just 1 meg of flash memory and lots of floppy swappen. I miss those days (not).