Opinion: Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia is good for lots of people...well, lots of people who own Adobe stock, at least.There are two possible reactions that creative professionals could have to the announcement of Adobe's planned acquisition of Macromedia. The first is probably one I can't print here without the use of profanity.
Undoubtedly, the merged Adobe-Macromedia monolith will be able to bring an impressive array of technology to bear on the problems that face people trying to create content for nearly any medium. By assimilating Macromedia, Adobe gets the Web-oriented technologies it never could get any traction with itself—like the Dreamweaver Web site design and content management environment and Flash Web media platform—and eliminates the few semi-viable competitive products left in digital imaging and illustration.
It's probably a good deal for Macromedia, too, from a fiduciary sense. Stock valued at $3.4 billion is nothing to shake a Wacom tablet pen at. And most of Macromedia's customers are already Adobe customers.
So everybody wins, right?
Well, no.
Like I said, Macromedia's customers are mostly Adobe's customers already. I use Dreamweaver and Studio MX, and I use Photoshop and InDesign. The products in Macromedia's portfolio that overlap with Adobe's—Fireworks and Freehand, for example—are strong, but not so strong that most designers and illustrators would pick them over Photoshop, ImageReady or Illustrator when taken by themselves.
But at least I've got the choice right now. It's pretty clear that a whole bunch of products are going to get voted off the Adobe-Macromedia island shortly.
Does the operating system still matter for creative professionals? Click here to read Andreas Pfeiffer's column.
I'm betting that Adobe will be purging its GoLive product line in favor of Dreamweaver (or at least demoting it to the equivalent of an "Express" consumer edition of the Dreamweaver tool); Freehand and Fireworks are probably destined for absorption into Adobe's Creative Suite lineup. So, if you have been using those tools, it's time to reassess how much you've tied yourself to them.
Aside from the potential loss of genetic diversity in the creative tools market, there's also a simple business reason why folks may not be too happy with the aftermath of Adobe's absorption of Macromedia. The acquisition makes Adobe a virtual monopoly, if not an actual one, in the content creation space. That could be a problem for content-oriented companies in the long term, strategically—and potentially economically, when the price of Adobe's software and suites climb further.
There doesn't seem to be anyone in the competitive landscape positioned to do anything to challenge a combined Adobe and Macromedia. Short of a sudden resurgence and diversification of Quark, or some great leap forward from Microsoft or Apple, Adobe seems to have acquired with this deal the ability to essentially collect a tariff on all creative work in the electronic domain.
The anti-competitive nature of this deal is the sort of reason why regulators might not be so quick to give their blessing to this corporate marriage. But they won't step in unless someone raises a stink about the deal. And given how friendly this deal appears to be, that would seem unlikely.
So it looks like it's time to stop worrying and love the monolith. Or go back to crayons and hot type.
Sean Gallagher is editor of Ziff Davis Internet's enterprise verticals group.
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