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April 18, 2005
EDITORIAL: MacromediAdobe - Where do I sign up?
When I heard the news for the first time that Macromedia was being bought by Adobe, I must admit I was a bit sad. I have been on the Macromedia bus from the beginning. I moved from Photoshop to Fireworks in the late 90s and to this day have hardly ever used Photoshop. Though an extremely successful company with many successful products, Macromedia seemed like an underdog in a lot of respects. They did not have the storied history of Adobe, and did not have the windfall of cash that Microsoft had. Yet their passion for creating easy-to-use but powerful applications - and even making them a bit sexy - was almost irresistable.
Personally, I feel this deal will be good for developers. Why?
As a working designer and developer of enterprise applications, 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. When a consumer buys an automobile - the consumer does not need to re-learn how to drive based on the car purchased.
In my opinion, web-building software should be the same way. But it's not. Even between versions of the same software you may have to unlearn the old way of doing things or spend time learning the new ways the software company thinks you should build a website.
Granted, part of this is due to the relatively young age of the internet. This combination of companies - as in any other industry - is merely a sign the Internet biz is growing up. In some ways it is sad but ultimately it will benefit me. How?
As I said earlier, I am tired of splintered groups of developers. I am tired of the religious wars over different text and WYSIWIG editors, and the zealots of certain graphic design and layout programs. These are signs of a young industry.
Now that the Internet biz is entering adulthood, it is time to think about what is REALLY important; getting information to users, assisting Internet initiatives in companies that make sense financially, and creating applications that can be contributed to by large groups of developers - unencumbered by petty battles over platform or tools.
Meanwhile, save your Macromedia stuff to auction on eBay in twenty years!
-Don Makoviney
Posted by Don at April 18, 2005 01:33 PM
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Comments
I couldn't agree more. Although I too am a Fireworks user, I am not looking forward to learning Photoshop over again. Do you think they will keep them as separate products for awhile?
Posted by: Mark W at April 18, 2005 01:52 PM
Adobe Go Live Ultra MX now with FireShop Image Slicer Pro & PDF Support! Buy now- only $1099.99.
It will be curious to see which route Adobe chooses- keep them seperate, merge the best of each product together, or totally scrap some of the software all together. I've never been a huge fan of Adobe's "new versions" and how they integrate new features. Macromedia at least had some consistency, and really focuses on the application sharing aspects.
Posted by: Jeremy at April 20, 2005 10:16 AM
