TidBITS offers a nicely written account of the last 20 years of software aided web and print design. They go indept into all mergers and aquisitions of the last two decades in the industry. They even mention the coming competition between Adobe and Quark for highend software and Adobe, Apple and MS for lowend design. The article is a very informative and good read that I definitely would check out if you have been following this issue as I have.
Monthly Archive for April, 2005
Page 2 of 4
eWeek wants to know if the Adobe-Macromedia Deal Kill Competition. They have a new in dept article that links relife designers concerns with the big merger and even links to various industry comments. The article is a good read to learn about how the real people are starting to worry about how the loss of macromedia’s software competition will effect us.
A whole slew of news outlets that buy their news from the same source, including the NewsFactor Network released a story on the merger today. the Story quotes another mistaken stock analyst who seems to think that Microsoft is in some sort of competition with two companies that it couldn’t hope to be ranked with. For the record… Adobe and Macromedia make design software for the print and web media… Microsoft makes operating systems, games, game hardware, and a word processing/office software suite… ms has yet to make anything near consumer quality software for the design market (frontpage and paint are crap products, just admit it already). Adobe is buying its only real competitor in the design market because Macromedia makes some of the best web related design software in the world, not to mention their design suite of applications mixed with their server offerings (which competes with microsoft but not in the way these moronic analysts seem to think).
first off the theft:On a side note, I found a site today that is stealling my content and I would like to notify the own of that site(adobe-photoshop dot informationadvice dot info) that he disgusts me and he needs to go write his own stuff and stop stealling from others!
Second, Macworld has a short story on the merger as seen by a stock analyst who incorrectly thinks this is about competition with microsoft(a company who has yet to make any good design software). This is just another sample of someone who doesn’t know what they are talking about trying to get in the fray. the article does go on to mention the anti-trust issues this merger may bring up though. Also a check of the comments attached to the article brings up a good point: “Let’s say it together now so everyone can get it through their heads: Microsoft and Adobe are *NOT* direct competitors, in ANY sense of the word.”- Photonerd. I can’t agree with this more.
The CSS Weblog has been undergoing some changes lately but they finally got around to giving their view on the big merge. They seem to be worried that web standards may suffer with the lost of some great programs. As usual everyone wants to know what is adobe going to do with its new software and what are they going to ditch?
The National Association of Broadcasters tradeshow was this week and The Mac Observer was there. They went around the show and got various reactions from industry insiders. Unfortunately the price issues weren’t mentioned but some points were made related to the use of Director and integration of Adobe’s video editing products.
CNET has its own little merger story up. they go into the history behind adobe and macromedia and try to rope microsoft into this discussion. I really think we can go ahead and delete MS from the equation as that oversize behemouth really needs to concentrate on getting out a product that doesn’t have the security concerns its flagship piece of junk does. (There is no reason a company with the resource of ms should continue to put out the junk os that they continue to release.)
