Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately US$3.4 billion. The companies plan to meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments.
Adobe to acquire Macromedia
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Foljs, on what in the world are you basing your false assumptions? I was trained in graphic design, design software user experiences professionally, and have done so for more than 15 years–that is, longer than the Web has existed. Between Dreamweaver and Photoshop, two of the applications I use daily in my work, Dreamweaver’s user experience is far superior. I know plenty of professional designers who agree with me, and one could readily say that your liking for Photoshop is based on your familiarity with it and the competitive advantage that provides you over newbies.
Of course, it’s wishful thinking, as if most of what is written here, including your comments about a dream operating system. Adobe isn’t the company to deliver such an OS, as the poor user interface design and architecture of their software products shows
What “poor interface design” and what “poor architecture”?
Adobe programs are among the most BUG-FREE programs around.
MILLIONS of professional designers rely on them 24/7 for time-critical workflows.
VERY VERY FEW designers have a problem with Adobe’s interface.
What most of our comments show is discontent on the part of product designers, developers, and graphic artists with the status quo.
Eh, this comments aren’t by designers and graphic artists. These kind of people DON’T frequent OSNEWS (duh!). It’s by lame kids pirating software and using it ocassionaly to build some paid-for websites for their local mini-markets. Since those kiddos mainly do web work (read: klunky web graphics) they are more familiar with Macromedia products, so Adobe-land seems an alien UI landscape to them.
Sad but true.
As for what we, REAL designers and illustrators use, go read a trade mag, a trade website, or go read the “PRO” section in http://www.apple.com with interviews from the trenches with REAL professionals.
Bad interface design on Adobe products mean that newbies have difficulties to get into the programs. People who have used Photoshop for years have learned the shortcuts and all the stuff and they think it’s easy.
Adobe can’t make Photoshop more user friendly, because most of the users are well trained professionals, who have the Photoshop interface in their spinal cord. For new users, almost any other graphic software is easier and I think that Photoshop could be easier, faster and more reliable to use if they renew the user interface. Of course, they’d have couple of years hard time, when the old users have difficulties, but after a while, it would be a win-win situation for both new and old users.
I don’t say Macromedia products have the best possible user interface, but it is definitely better than any Adobe product I know.
I can see the new product conglomerates now:
Adobe Firecracker
Adobe Photostall
Adobe Twinkle Pro
Adobe GoDream
Adobe InHell
Rock on…
well at least we might see some decent User Interfaces for Macromedia Products now. Up til now, they have just been awful!
Does anyone else remember LiveMotion – think Photoshop for creating flash, but with a Usable UI.
Why the fusion?
Because Microsoft will do something better?
Why if flash will make more money than all other adobe’s products, Adobe acquire Macromedia? it’s kind of crazy.
Actually I can’t figure out what will happen.
The competition about the final price of an application will be the same?
If there is pace between Adobe and Macromedia, it will be peace between them and the typical client like us?
Will be standardization in the use of the applications, because with Adobe, premiere time line works just with [+] / [-], and with encore DVD with [ctrl]+[+]
And the zoom and move functions.
Also the same happened in macromedia, they may look almost the same, but with different shortcut keys, can they use the same shortcuts, taking the idea that each one separately cannot achieve that?
Well, I’m kind of nervous because it’s a huge change, and of curse will affect all the typical multimedia developers. I can only say Thanks Macromedia for Flash, and Thanks Adobe for Photoshop and Premiere.
is evolution baby.