Adobe to buy Macromedia
The big headline this morning reported that Adobe, the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat, is buying Macromedia which brought Dreamweaver and Flash to the computer world.
What a way to start the week! 
Following are the links to the offical notices:
Following are a few links on the subject:
Wat Do I Know
Veerle’s Blog
Slashdot
mezzoblue
I’m not going to repeat everything those links say, but I will say that there have been some concerns voiced over the two big graphics software companies in the industry becoming one. One concern is whether some overlapping software that does the same thing will be eliminated; examples include Dreamweaver and GoLive, and Illustrator and FreeHand. Others have the possibility of being combined so as to get the best of both packages.
Another concern is that with the elimination of it’s biggest competitor, Adobe will have less reason to create newer software packages with useful features and sell them at a competitive price. Once there is less competition, Adobe can increase prices drastically, while possibly providing less high quality software. In this sense, Adobe could become another Microsoft, doing with graphics and web developmant software what Microsoft did with it’s Windows OS and Internet Explorer.
One popular rumor is that the big part of the deal is centered on Flash, the popular web animation software. Supposedly it is one of the more pressing reasons for Adobe to make the acquisition. There is also speculation that Adobe could modify Flash so that it outputs movies in an open format called SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) instead of the binary format that it uses currently. This could make Flash movies much more portable, robust and easy to modify. The downside is that SVG is not functional in most major browsers at this time, with the exception of Opera 8.
That’s enough rambling from me…The point is, there are a lot of possibilities and potential disappointments in the future once Adobe completes the acquisition, which is supposed to be in late 2005. It should be a very interesting time indeed.