ADOBE To Acquire MACROMEDIA -- Where To?

This is an overview of the very main points of the acquisition, if you want more very detailed info, check out the Resources section.

SAN JOSE, California - April 18, 2005
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.

That means,
Adobe and Macromedia have agreed to a deal which allows Adobe to purchase Macromedia for an estimated 3.4 billion dollars (USD).

And then,
SAN JOSE, California – December 5, 2005
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the completion of its acquisition of Macromedia, Inc. The transaction was finalized on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2005. As a result of the acquisition, Macromedia common stock is no longer being traded and shares of Macromedia common stock were converted into the right to receive 1.38 shares of Adobe common stock.

**About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe is the world’s leading provider of software solutions to create, manage and deliver high-impact, reliable digital content.

**About Macromedia
Experience matters. Macromedia is motivated by the belief that great experiences build great businesses. Our software empowers millions of business users, developers, and designers to create and deliver effective, compelling, and memorable experiences - on the Internet, on fixed media, on wireless, and on digital devices.

The move also accelerates Adobe's strategic initiative to advance a powerful software platform, based on PDF and Macromedia® Flash® technologies, that scales from mobile devices to high-end servers.

Management of the combined company includes executives and board members from both organizations.
Macromedia’s stockholders will own 18% of the combined company.
Unfair, isn't it?
That leads us to an important question:
Did Adobe pay $3.4 billion for a Flash plug-in?

Another area of interest concerns the various reactions found in web developer and other Internet technology-related forums. This is where talk of an Adobe monopoly was the loudest. Many posters see the deal as Adobe consuming their competition, while hurting
overall developer software innovation.

Also..
Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe says,"Customers are calling for integrated software solutions that enable them to create, manage and deliver a wide range of compelling
content and applications – from documents and images to audio and video, by combining our powerful development, authoring and collaboration software – along with the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash – Adobe has the opportunity to bring this vision
to life with an industry-defining technology platform."

and says too: "The merger will mean cost savings as the two companies' workforces are streamlined, but he stressed the motivation behind the merger was to expand and grow their business by integrating their respective product lines."

Well, i don't think so!

Still reading?, Check this...

Will there be a reduction in force as a result of this acquisition?
Yes. but guarantee employees that leave with programs to help them work again!

How many employees does Adobe have?
Adobe has approximately 4,000 employees worldwide.

How many employees does Macromedia have?
Macromedia HAD approximately 1,450 employees worldwide.

What will happen to the Macromedia corporate brand?
What will happen to product and technology brands, such as Dreamweaver and Flash?
To provide the most consistency and clarity in our communication with customers, the Macromedia corporate brand will immediately be retired, and the company will fully align behind the Adobe corporate brand. Adobe will continue investing in key Macromedia product brands. Initially, product brands acquired from Macromedia will include the Macromedia name (for example, "Macromedia Dreamweaver"). Over time, Macromedia products will migrate to the Adobe brand (for example, "Adobe Dreamweaver") during planned release cycles when packaging materials and user and marketing collateral are updated.
Just in one simple word about MM brand --> Die

Do you expect to integrate the FlashPlayer and the Adobe Reader?
The complementary functionality of FlashPlayer and Adobe Reader will enable the deployment of a more robust cross-media, rich-client technology platform. The combined company will continue to be committed to the needs of both the FlashPlayer and Adobe Reader users.

Adobe also says:
Our long-term plan is to develop a "universal client" by combining PDF, Flash and HTML in a single, integrated runtime.The integration of these technologies into a unified framework creates a ubiquitous platform that runs on virtually every device, and dramatically expands the opportunities to create compelling solutions.

All products continue to be available for purchase.

Assuming that all is goes as planned, Macromedia will cease to exist. Everything will be in the Adobe name and with the Adobe interface.
Ummm, What does this mean for the MX product line?

The desired products are Flash, Dreamweaver, and ColdFusion. The other products will be killed or merged into existing Adobe products.
So sad!

From the survey of all the commentary out there, the general feeling seems to be that Photoshop will kill Fireworks, Illustrator will kill Freehand, and Dreamweaver will kill GoLive. This seems to be confirmed.

Once Freehand, Fireworks, and GoLive are killed, customers will have the benefit of not having any competing applications to choose from, and we benefit from not having any competitors.

We just bought the only significant competitor to several of our flagship applications. We didn’t buy Macromedia, we bought the market.

The financial markets didn't seem to react too well to the deal. Adobe's stock price fell 8+% while Macromedia, which was offered $41.86 per share, only saw a rise to 36.72

Finally, i want you to use your mind and think about these few points:

** Adobe acquired Macromedia to increase their money investments.
** Did Adobe pay $3.4 billion dollars for a Flash plug-in?
** Adobe wants to kill annoying apps [e.g. Fireworks, Freehand, Director].
** Adobe wants to integrate specific successful, leading-edge technologies [Flash] with its name.
** Adobe wants to consume their competitors [Macromedia brand is dead].

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em....

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-- Critic opinions from readers, users and developers worldwide after declaring acquisition:

"suck adobe", "adobe rape mm", "adobe ruin flash", "f._.ck adobe", "really upset", "stop adobe", "against adobe", and "hate adobe". I'm detecting a tiny bit of anti-Adobe sentiment here...

"Many of the comments use words like 'bloated,' 'old,' 'not customer friendly,' and 'copying Microsoft's business plan' in describing Adobe..On the other hand, words like 'innovative,' 'attentive to customer needs,' 'dynamic and young' are used to describe Macromedia. Perhaps the Macromedia purchase will give Adobe a shot of vitality"

"I am tired of the battle over tools. When a carpenter buys a hammer, he doesn't have to change the way he builds houses based on the hammer he buys"

"Adobe's gonna screw it up. It's not an anti-Adobe or pro-Macromedia thing. It's just what seems to happens every time. What Adobe doesn't jettison they will cannabalize - imagine GoLive with Dreamweaver features - new and "improved". All because it's business - if you can't beat 'em, buy 'em - and so the technical decisions will be made from a business standpoint"

"You think the current version of Acrobat Reader takes too long to launch, runs too slowly, and uses too much memory? You ain’t seen nothing yet!"

"Macromedia is a smart, dynamic company brimming with people who understand their customers, understand the technology, and deliver top-notch products that really do what you need them to do"

"Adobe is a conservative, plodding company that too often puts company priorities above customer satisfaction. (Small example: an absolutely customer-hostile upgrade experience. And $150 for a .0x release of Photoshop.) I buy their products only because I have to have them. (Photoshop, Acrobat)"

"God Bless Macromedia"

"GoLive must die --- Long live Dreamweaver"

"GoLive is a sorry bag of bugs of an application while Dreamweaver seems to excell at everything it does. I hope Adobe kills GoLive. I have both applications and GoLive sucks BIGTIME!"

"I can't wait till flash player runs on system startup and starts nagging me to download updates everytime I surf to a site using it. Outside of photoshop, Macromedia's products just seem to be a more professional grade"

"This is sad"

"I've eliminated all Adobe software except PageMaker 6.5. And maybe I will keep my copy of Dreamweaver. But other than those two, no more Adobe products for me. After all, I am not one of those highly qualified professionals that Adobe cares about. I am with the rest of the world that Adobe doesn't care about. And I sort of like it that way"

"Just when I was falling in love with everything Macroemdia has to offer - they go and let Adobe in. All I can say is they better not touch Coldfusion. I use Macromedia Homesite - so if they make that program a memory sucker - I guess I can always revert back to notepad"

"Not the end of Dreamweaver.
Actually I don't think anybody really thinks it's the end of Dreamweaver. More like we think it's the end of a quality dreamweaver"

"Don't get me wrong I like Photoshop and InDesign, but I just would prefer Adobe to leave Macromedia alone. I don't care that Adobe bought Macromedia, but I would prefer Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks to maintain their look and feel. I don't want Dreamweaver to look like Photoshop. Dreamweaver has a very fluid design and it works"

"I don't know if this transition will be bad or not, but I would prefer not to find out"

"The death of Fireworks and Freehand?I personally like Fireworks, makes things a little easier for someone who is not a designer compared to photoshop. I doubt that they will keep both. Look what happened to ColdFusion Studio and Kawa after Macromedia took over Allaire back in 2001"

"If the new management is smart, they will change VERY little when it comes to product lines. Yes, there's overlap with Illustrator/Freehand, Dreamweaver/GoLive, and some would say Photoshop/Fireworks (I disagree on that one). Some products will benefit from integration, others will get new features to ignore"

"This is a good move for Adobe, but I really don't think Macromedia needed to do this. Quarter after Quarter profits post bubble and high endorsement rate of the Flash/Breeze platform were more than enough to keep me happy as a stockholder. Adobe is far less stable with thier income streams"

"Time will tell if it was a good move, or bad"

"Maybe a little hope, though, if the Macromedia people that are canned would band together and start over. If they do, using the lessons learned of course, it could be a very good thing"

"Looks like I'll be stuck at HomeSite 5.5 for a very long time"

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-- Critic opinions from professional writters worldwide after declaring acquisition:

**Mike Chambers, a Product Manager at Macromedia says on his blog,
"Macromedia's 'culture of openness and participation' as one of the reasons that Adobe was interested in the company"

**Kevin Lynch, Chief Software Architect for Macromedia,
He's very hopeful about the future of the combined company

That's two employees of Macromedia chiming in about the acquisition on their blogs. And many more MM employees keep active blogs, so I'm sure we'll be hearing more from that side of the fence (although because of the legal stuff, it looks like posts about this need to be approved). On the other side, I've never heard of an Adobe employee that keeps a blog. Anyone?!

Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen says:
"That 9/11 was a bit of a catalyst for the deal, after 9/11, we both realized that being enemies didn't make sense".

Tim Bray, co-author of XML and Director of Web Technologies @ Sun,
Thinks that Adobe got Macromedia for their web products.Macromedia's Dreamweaver is the single most important Web-design product.

Jeremy Allaire, former CTO of Macromedia, had this to say about the acquisition:
"Macromedia lost the enterprise publishing race to Adobe, and Adobe lost it with the Web publishing community. So the deal combines the best of both worlds. It gives Macromedia a huge sales channel, especially on the enterprise side. This will probably make the channels as strong as Microsoft has"

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Official Resources:

For information far beyond limits, i strongly recommend this PDF [98 KB]http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/pdfs/AdobeMacromediaFAQ.pdf

Adobe to Acquire Macromedia
[Press releases - FAQs and fact sheets - Presentations, webcasts, and transcripts about the acquisition]
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html

Adobe completes acquisition of Macromedia
[Links to complete information about the new Abobe]
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/acquisition.html

If you want to go by yourself and dig alot more, use Google to search for [Adobe Macromedia acquisition], you won't believe how big the information is!

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