[c-choox]

Anyone like to speculate on the fallout in the Apple community - my gut feeling is, it can't be good...

[Roland]

this is a bad bad thing.


afraid

[drewprops]

Here's the link:
http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/18/tech...reut/index.htm


Holy Moly Mother of .......

Talk about your MONOLOPOLIES..... this is HUGE to us graphics people. What's going to happen to the products in the long run guys?

[Gargoyle]

I'm not so sure. What are the actual overlapping products? The last time I used GoLive it wasnt even in the same solar system and Dreamweaver (both still miles behind jEdit )

Freehand = Illustrator ?

[pcmeissner]

Fireworks = ImageReady/Photoshop ?

I like adobe products, but announcments like this can't be good for the consumer. Bye bye Quark with its feeble page layout/web page software. Adobe just became a 800 lb. gorilla x2.

[Brad]

For anyone that hasn't been following the news, here's what c-choox was talking about:

Adobe Systems to buy Macromedia in stock deal

Adobe Systems today announced an deal to buy Macromedia in a stock-based deal valued at US$3.4 billion, reports MarketWatch. "The terms, approved by boards of both software developers, set a 25% premium for Macromedia shares, based on the stock's close on Friday at $33.45. Macromedia holders are to receive 0.69 shares of Adobe for every share of Macromedia."

The terms, approved by boards of both software developers, set a 25% premium for Macromedia shares, based on the stock's close on Friday of $33.45. Macromedia holders are to receive 0.69 shares of Adobe for every share of Macromedia. Macromedia shares (MACR: news, chart, profile) surged 13.6% in early speculative trade in London to $38. Adobe (ADBE: news, chart, profile) was offered 1% lower, dealers said. Adobe closed Friday at $60.66, down 4.4% on the day. Macromedia develops design tools for building rich media, or interactive applications. The San Francisco-based company claims the top spot in the market for Web site design, with about one third of the market, followed by Microsoft (MSFT: news, chart, profile) . "Macromedia has been pushing the digital age for a number of years; Adobe wants to get into that space," said Bola Rotibi, a senior applications analyst at Ovum, a U.K. market research group. "They will be a stronger competitor for Microsoft." Adobe makes publishing software for off-line media and as well as the online world. With Macromedia, Adobe is reaching an estimated 3 million Web developers and can expect the size of its current market of graphic artists and marketing executives to expand by 60% to 8 million, said Jamie Friedman, analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners. "In the end, it's the same idea... to get those products on a computer or a set-top box or a gaming console or a cell phone," he said. "The companies have grown up together." Adobe is paying around 42 times earnings estimates for this year, which is similar to other deals including the PeopleSoft and JD Edwards acquisitions, Friedman said. To compare stock premiums, in the most recent software industry deal, the premium for retail business software provider Retek reached around 90% after a bidding war erupted between SAP (SAP: news, chart, profile) and eventual winner, Oracle Corp. (ORCL: news, chart, profile) . Web market; mobile growth Macromedia generates about 80% of its revenue from Web site design and development tools, while Adobe only generates about 2% of it revenue from this market, according to IDC research. Adobe generates about 92% of its revenue from the authoring software market and is fourth in the Web site design market with just under 5%, IDC said. In the authoring software market, Microsoft dominates with about 80% market share. It's followed by Adobe, which shows about 15 % share on a global basis, the figures show. Adobe didn't detail cost-savings estimates with the proposed deal, but said it's expected to close this fall. Adobe Chief Executive Bruce Chizen will remain CEO of the combined companies. Adobe said it's aiming at "an industry-defining technology platform" with the combination of its PDF software and Macromedia's flagship Flash multimedia platform. Recently, Macromedia has pointed to the mobile market for growth. On Jan. 19, it announced that Samsung Electronics would include Flash in its mobile phones. "The applications, content and experiences that we can build into our mobile phones are truly awesome," Chairman Rob Burgess said on a conference call Jan. 19 with analysts. "I think the developer community is all very excited about it, and as we get increasing population of Flash on devices shipping into the market and operator support, I just think it bodes very well for a fabulous market opportunity for the next decade of Macromedia." Other products from Macromedia include Web authoring tool and Internet applications in Dreamweaver and ColdFusion. Breeze incorporates PowerPoint presentation tools with Web-based meetings and training services. Adobe upbeat on second quarter Separately, Adobe said it expects earnings and sales in the quarter ending June 3 "toward the high end" of its targeted range amid "strong demand of Adobe Acrobat." Adobe had set the range at revenue of $475 million to $495 million and earnings per share of 51 cents to 55 cents. Adobe said it's "experiencing solid demand in all of its major geographic markets." However, citing a lack of estimates on costs related to the Macromedia deal and stock-based compensation expenses, Adobe said it was unable to provide an outlook for estimates on future earnings. Adobe's board approved a stock buyback plan worth $1 billion, post-acquisition.

Since this potentially has much wider implications, I'm moving this thread to the General Discussion forum and merging with drewprops' thread (too slow, drew ).

[BuonRotto]

Well, Apple just got a swift kick in the pants, and a lot of would-be competitors probably have a lot less would-be in them with this announcement.

It will be interesting to see how Adobe handles the merger of the software since there is so much overlap. What do you think will happen? Are Macromedia users like Adobe users and would give up the software only when you pry it from their cold dead fingers? When Adobe changes the apps, and you know they will change them to fit their custom platform UI and merge them with current ones, will there be revolt, or will those Macromedia users play along? Whither SVG?

[art jrk]

If you all remember, this is not the first time Adobe has bought the company that owns Freehand. Back when they aquired Aldus, Freehand was then sold to Macromedia. This may happen again.

Adobe also bought GoLive to replace its own weaker PageMill. So DreamWeaver seems a desired target.

Flash also looks to be a prize since Adobe did not fare well with LiveMotion.

Personally I use Adobe products so I see this merger as a good thing. I like (am used to) the Adobe interface as opposed to Freehand's.

As far as Apple goes, where is the threat?

[CoreMac]

Surely this have an effect on the number of CS2 Premium upgrades, now that everyone knows GoLive probably doesn't have much life left. Seems poorly timed for Adobe's purposes. They need to quickly clarify the future of certain products quickly or it could impact sales. Poor sales> the stock plummets> Apple buys them.

[DrGruv]

I still use livemotion - hope to see it comeback

soo...

what apps will be dropped?

will they keep macromedia brand as a second marketing name? or change everything to adobe?

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Originally Posted by Gargoyle I'm not so sure. What are the actual overlapping products? The last time I used GoLive it wasnt even in the same solar system and Dreamweaver (both still miles behind jEdit ) Freehand = Illustrator ?

Someone at MacNN said Adobe could combine Freehand & Illustrator to come up with a new product, Frustrator.

[ast3r3x]

Originally Posted by CoreMac Surely this have an effect on the number of CS2 Premium upgrades, now that everyone knows GoLive probably doesn't have much life left. Seems poorly timed for Adobe's purposes. They need to quickly clarify the future of certain products quickly or it could impact sales. Poor sales> the stock plummets> Apple buys them.

Not going to happen, but that would be awesome. I can just imagine how amazing photoshop would be if Apple made it. I wonder what would happen with the PC version, because I assume they'd start rewriting it for mac so it would take advantage of the OS's capabilities more.

If they could start rewriting it, with how Photoshop is, I wonder if it's nicely written or a whole bunch of spaghetti code.

Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend Someone at MacNN said Adobe could combine Freehand & Illustrator to come up with a new product, Frustrator.

[johnq]

Hopefully Flash will get a much needed makeover. Fire, fire, fire, the assholes who designed the Flash GUI.

Good lord...Adobe will own Coldfusion? That's just...weird.

I don't like all that this entails. Gives Apple way less room to eff with Adobe. Or maybe more of a reason.

Blech...I can't think about this one yet...too big.

[BenRoethig]

This could be really good or really really bad. The nightmare senario of Adobe stopping Mac development or Microsoft just got a lot worse. Apple could maybe get past losing Adobe or Macromedia. Losing both, I don't see how the Platform could stay viable in anything but the high end audio and video tasks.

[ast3r3x]

Originally Posted by BenRoethig This could be really good or really really bad. The nightmare senario of Adobe stopping Mac development or Microsoft just got a lot worse. Apple could maybe get past losing Adobe or Macromedia. Losing both, I don't see how the Platform could stay viable in anything but the high end audio and video tasks.

Apple itself is the high end audio and video market without going to special hardware

If they, for some unknown reason, would discontinue software for Apple, I don't think it would be that difficult for Apple to create a photoshop replacement with using all the technologies they have in their OS and from other applications they make. The difficult thing will be getting people to switch to it instead of switch to a different platform.

Since photoshop is the same on both platforms, it would be more logical to switch systems and everything be relatively the same than to switch programs and have to learn something entirely new.

I think Photoshop is the only thing that would really f*** Apple over. Regardless Adobe will not stop supporting Apple, it just doesn't make sense, they are too big of an income source for them.

[rasmits]

This sucks. Adobe will ruin Macromedia... I much prefer the competition and the ability to choose then having one option.

[WBG4]

Bye bye competition, bye bye innovation, bye bye competitive prices. this is going to be bad me thinks

[Moogs]

While the reactions are understandable to some degree, I think some of you are being a little hysterical / irrational.

For certain it means less competition in the 2D Illustration and Web Design markets. However by no means does it mean less innovation. I believe very strongly (and these are ALL just my opinions, nobody else's) that Adobe recognizes the strength and quality of Macromedia's technology. It is likely (though all just conjecture right now) that they fully intend to leverage that technology and give it an Adobe look and polish.

Despite what you read in the ridiculous articles like the one posted at MacCentral, this is not about competing with MS (AT ALL) and it's not about Macromedia's user interfaces. It's about the Flash engine, it's about Cold Fusion, it's about Lingo and a dozen other things that are really stable, powerful technologies -- all of which Adobe can leverage to make their stuff truly awesome.

Let's look at video stuff. Look at what Apple introduced yesterday. It's *amazing*, and is there any doubt it will come to dominate the market? No. And the number of players that can compete with Apple are getting smaller and smaller. Some due in part to their less notable, but very important acquisitions over the last few years, some in part to their own ingenuity. The point is, no one is complaining that Apple has no competition.

So it should be with Adobe until they show a reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt. Adobe has the opportunity to make GoLive and ImageReady and Illustrator into the most amazing applications around for their markets, and I believe they will do that. They won't be perfect and the first round may even be a little quirky until Adobe finds the right "blend" of features, looks and usability.

-----
2-3 years from now, I believe Adobe's lineup will look something like this:

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator (probably with the more user-friendly elements of Freehand replacing their current equivalents)

Adobe InDesign

Adobe Dreamweaver (it will essentially be GoLive with some of MM's better technologies worked in, probably some DC stuff, CFML, etc)

Adobe Director (I belive Flash and Director may become a single application finally and it will also sport the Adobe interface to some degree. They will do to it what Apple is starting to do to Logic, essentially).

Adobe After Effects (possibly strong integration with some of Director's sprite engine technologies and that sort of thing).

----

What's going away / will stay gone:

Freehand

Livemotion

SVG (this is a big one since Adobe is the main driver behind this and Flash has eaten SVG's lunch for the most part)

Authorware (probably its best parts will be integrated into Director, just like Flash).

RoboHelp (integrated into "the new Dreamweaver", aka GoLive 9 or 10.)

A few others that I'm not that familiar with but which probably serve little purpose for Adobe to spend time developing / promoting further.

----
Competition?

Corel, Apple and all the little guys like Stone Studio out there.

Main competing points:

Painter & Corel Plugins vs. Photoshop (even this is debatable as we speak)

After Effects vs. Motion (that's a real competition still)


Odd possibility: long ago Macromedia owned a pretty cool collection of audio technologies called SoundEdit 16. Were they to resurrect that and add support for modern formats, video syncing, etc... Adobe might well compete against Soundtrack Pro.

Whatever happens it will be interesting. I can't wait to see what develops.

[drewprops]

I could have SWORN that I started a thread about this a little before 7am this morning. Weird.

But I agree with Moogs' observations!

[CoreMac]

Interesting that Moogs thinks GoLive will live on under the Dreamweaver name. Most everyone else thinks GoLive will disappear. Maybe his CS2 beta testing has informed his views.

All the talk of Apple buying Painter made me think about Synthetik's Studio Artist. I wonder why so few people know about this program? It gets a lot of great reviews. Perhaps if Apple wants something to build a PS skunkworks project around, they should buy Synthetik. No one would know it was gone.

[admactanium]

fireworks and freehand are going bye bye. that's the word from inside macromedia.

[rasmits]

Originally Posted by admactanium fireworks and freehand are going bye bye. that's the word from inside macromedia.

NNOOOO!!!!! As long as DreamWeaver, and Flash stay, I think I'll be okay.

But I prefered Illustrator to Photoshop.

[IVIIVI4ck3y27]

Originally Posted by Moogs While the reactions are understandable to some degree, I think some of you are being a little hysterical / irrational.

Anyone that's a Macromedia user will likely be a bit unnerved. Adobe users might even be a bit flabbergasted too wondering what will come with Adobe's products. Which will get killed of the products that overlap? Which will stick around? Will they be preferrable to what was around before, will they be better, will they be worse?

So there's a lot of fear and uncertainty and doubt... but by no means should we all be crying "The sky is falling" until we know it really is.

For certain it means less competition in the 2D Illustration and Web Design markets. However by no means does it mean less innovation. I believe very strongly (and these are ALL just my opinions, nobody else's) that Adobe recognizes the strength and quality of Macromedia's technology. It is likely (though all just conjecture right now) that they fully intend to leverage that technology and give it an Adobe look and polish.

I think you've touched on the reality and yet the concern as well. Adobe people like Adobe interfaces. I can speak legions for this because I hate Dreamweaver (would rather handcode than use it) and I hate Flash in terms of interface (their timeline editor is terrible, and much of the UI is counter-intuitive), not in terms of what they can do in the hands of someone that can leverage them. That said... if Adobe were to kill both GoLive and Dreamweaver and spawn a new product that does what both products do well, with an Adobe-like interface... I think many Adobe fans would rejoice as, as good as GoLive has been compared to Pagemill, Pagemill had a much more Adobe-like interface that was clean and simple to use... whereas GoLive being much more empowering, can be just as cluttered and fussy as Dreamweaver and the other editors. That still doesn't mean that Dreamweaver fans would be pleased with a new product that's not a further continuity of Dreamweaver's UI... it depends on if they like or would warm to the Adobe UI or not.

The same could be said for Flash.

Despite what you read in the ridiculous articles like the one posted at MacCentral, this is not about competing with MS (AT ALL) and it's not about Macromedia's user interfaces. It's about the Flash engine, it's about Cold Fusion, it's about Lingo and a dozen other things that are really stable, powerful technologies -- all of which Adobe can leverage to make their stuff truly awesome.

Well... Microsoft does have an initiative with C# and .NET but how much this plays into that is really questionable. Noone at this stage that's a real designer takes Frontpage seriously. I don't think that with this merger that it'll start now. LoL Unless Adobe has plans to release their own word processor and operating system, video game console, free email and instant messaging service, media player and web browser soon... I don't get the punchline anymore than you do. LoL

But I do agree with the quote on leveraging Macromedia tech and engine technology and combining it with Adobe-like GUI's going forward. The next major overhaul of Flash might even be more like a melding of what Livemotion did well, and what Flash excelled at, and then some. The problem here is... you run the risk of alienating a lot of Macromedia users who are accustomed to using Flash as it was. Would they learn whatever the next product is and is called? Do they have a choice?

I don't like Macromedia products... but I do think it has to sting for the traditional Macromedia user that liked Flash, Freehand, Dreamweaver, or other products better than Adobe's. I feel for them. Their weapons of choice are likely to be raped and plundered for the sakes of making other products more powerful and usable.

Let's look at video stuff. Look at what Apple introduced yesterday. It's *amazing*, and is there any doubt it will come to dominate the market? No. And the number of players that can compete with Apple are getting smaller and smaller. Some due in part to their less notable, but very important acquisitions over the last few years, some in part to their own ingenuity. The point is, no one is complaining that Apple has no competition.

In a way I do. I think Adobe screwed up when they elected not to continue pursuing Premiere and finding a way of making it challenge Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express, and maybe even iMovie on the Mac. I also think Adobe screwed up when they didn't bring Encore to the Mac when they had the chance. Yes one could argue that it'd have to compete with DVD Studio Pro and iDVD... but it does more than iDVD and isn't in the same focus as DVD Studio Pro yet it does a lot of things quite nicely that neither Apple product does. Choice is good. Adobe not playing in this market to me is a dumb move, no matter how much of the market they have in percentage, it's more than electing to "not" participate in the market at all. Innovate... try... don't be lazy or weak-minded and concede just because you don't want to have to try to compete.

So it should be with Adobe until they show a reason not to give them the benefit of the doubt. Adobe has the opportunity to make GoLive and ImageReady and Illustrator into the most amazing applications around for their markets, and I believe they will do that. They won't be perfect and the first round may even be a little quirky until Adobe finds the right "blend" of features, looks and usability.

Agreed... and none of this is to say that because of this someone else might not step up and buy another company out to mix products together. If I was Corel, I'd consider buying Quark, and find a good way to blend some of the features of Painter IX and Paintshop Pro (acquired from JASC) and Corel Draw together and get them out on Mac. If priced reasonably well... and given the right feature set... it could be an alternative. I'd also ramp up integration with Quark and the new Paintshop Pro (needs to be released for Mac for Corel's sake), as well as work on bringing Corel Draw back to Mac (again). Now that Freehand might be gone, and assuming Corel can finally get their act in gear... they've got a potential market to play out of that was split more prior to now.

----- 2-3 years from now, I believe Adobe's lineup will look something like this: Adobe Photoshop Adobe Illustrator (probably with the more user-friendly elements of Freehand replacing their current equivalents) Adobe InDesign Adobe Dreamweaver (it will essentially be GoLive with some of MM's better technologies worked in, probably some DC stuff, CFML, etc) Adobe Director (I belive Flash and Director may become a single application finally and it will also sport the Adobe interface to some degree. They will do to it what Apple is starting to do to Logic, essentially). Adobe After Effects (possibly strong integration with some of Director's sprite engine technologies and that sort of thing).

To some degree I agree... but here's my addendums/visions/opinions/and wild guesses for the Mac platform:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac... the continued evolution of this product.

Adobe Photoshop Webworks for Mac. A melding of Fireworks and Imageready as standalone, sells for half to 3/4 of Photoshop CS's costs, has all of the vector and photo editing tools but no CMYK support. The name is just something I threw together that I thought worked for clarifying the product's focus. Slots in better as a competitor to Paintshop Pro for PC than Elements can for the $, although Elements for it's core market excels over Paintshop Pro in terms of helping users fix their digital photos regardless of skill level..

Adobe Photoshop CS 3 for Mac. Finally merges the Imageready/Internet Studio functionalities into Photoshop and does away with the inclusion of Imageready as a separate companion install finally. Can do everything Webworks does but also is geared for Graphic Design as well (duh).

Adobe GoLive/Dreamweaver replacement. I'm going to go with the idea that like InDesign did to Pagemaker, both of these programs functionalities and then some will be brought into a brand new application that trumps both with a more Adobe-like interface than even GoLive and a feature set that'll put both to shame. This will become part of CS 3.

Adobe Flash. Likely with a more Adobe-friendly interface (Premiere + After Effects + Illustrator + Flash; or in effect... Livemotion had it not been end of lifed before it really had the opportunity to show itself), I expect the functionalities to remain strong and the integration with Adobe products to be the new big news. Also part of CS 3.

Adobe Director. I don't agree that Flash and Director will be combined, with the exception that I can see Director evolving into like a Super Flash + Director combination. It's kind of an odd product but it'll be interesting to see what Adobe is able to do with it.

Adobe After Effects. No change other than tighter integration and additional tools and functionality.

Adobe InDesign CS3. No change other than tighter integration and additional tools and functionality. Also part of CS 3.

Adobe Illustrator CS3. Will see some features from Freehand designed into the product, and likely a tighter integration with Flash. Also part of CS 3.

Adobe Acrobat. Duh. This won't go away and likely won't change it's product focus.

Adobe Contribute. Likely to continue to evolve, and become integrated into the functionalities of the new Web page layout program. This product negates the need for an "Elements" version of the GoLive/Dreamweaver replacement.

I do agree that Freehand is gone. I'm not sure on Authorware. I think Livemotion is dead but I'm not sure the layout/look/concept is as I think it's very much applicable to what the Flash UI will evolve into.

This is all speculative... but it just seems logical to me.

---- Competition? Corel, Apple and all the little guys like Stone Studio out there. Main competing points: Painter & Corel Plugins vs. Photoshop (even this is debatable as we speak) After Effects vs. Motion (that's a real competition still)

I think Corel with their purchase of JASC (Paintshop Pro) likely brings some greater potential to the table (assuming they also consider bringing Corel Draw out to compete with Illustrator again, knowing that Freehand is likely gone), assuming they decide to bring it to the Mac platform to put a fire under Adobe.

As far as alternatives:

There's also Pixel32, a Photoshop-like photo editor/design program that's currently in 1.0RC (release candidate) status. It's available for OS X, Windows, Linux, et al. It looks rather promising although being a pre-release software and only at a 1.0 status... it's got a ways to go to compete with Photoshop, and it's still quite green (most software takes 'til 3.0 to become viable). There's also The GIMP, which while having a cluttered interface... if given some TLC in the GUI department could be evolved into a nice free alternative to Photoshop and be a good open-source base for Apple to work off of much as they did Safar with KHTMLi. It's a shame TIFFany is gone as it'd been nice to see continue on (legacy editor from the NeXT years).

Oh and don't forget ACD Canvas (formerly Deneba). It's like a combination of Illustrator/Freehand and Photoshop combined. It's also still available for the Mac and has a lot of neat functionalities available for it.

I keep waiting for Corel to buy Quark... it just makes sense for them if they're trying to go in the direction they seem to be gunning for.

Odd possibility: long ago Macromedia owned a pretty cool collection of audio technologies called SoundEdit 16. Were they to resurrect that and add support for modern formats, video syncing, etc... Adobe might well compete against Soundtrack Pro.

Why not just bring Adobe Audition over from the PC side? The answer?!? Adobe has no desire to compete with Apple in markets that Apple has tackled. They didn't bring Encore (DVD) over, and they killed off Premiere, didn't bring Photoshop Album over because of iPhoto. They didn't bring Premiere Elements over because of iMovie. I don't expect Adobe to compete with Soundtrack, Logic, or Garageband with either Audition or a revived Soundedit16 and Deck II or any other alternative. It'd been nice to see that technology get released to the masses for further evolution. Then again the same can be said for TIFFany and maybe Audion as well.

Whatever happens it will be interesting. I can't wait to see what develops.

Me either... but with some trepidation I do go forward even as my curiousity is pegged to the 11's (ode to Spinal Tap).

i'm it, i'm the guy that says this is what needed to happen. macromedia and adobe where getting too comforable in what they did. steve has delt with the music and video well... this is THE reason for him to look at a whole new market. there was a time that powerpoint was it, there was a time windows media player worked, there was a time that programs could work independently. that time is over. are you not excited that photoshop might get something to compete against. if it's an apple product, maybe ilife 06 that's awsome. steve give us a reason to look forward to this. i have hope and this hope is said by... oh and ine more thing...

[ast3r3x]

If Apple would make something to compete with photoshop, it would NOT be coming in an iLife box.

[davidbaldwin]

I think your all missing it..
Macromedia has been playing around with making stand-alone flash applications that would work Cross-Platform.
just like Java..

so..here's the theory..
Adobe has been spending way too much money making there products cross-platform..
so, instead they will buy Macromedia and develop all of Adobe's apps including the Creative Suite in Flash.
now, right not this would be a terrible proposition, but I could certainly see it in Adobe's horizon.
Think of it this way, they would only have to code the program once and it would work on as many OSs as Flash supports.

[Moogs]

CoreMac: While I am privvy to certain pieces of information and opinions that come with the beta territory, I believe this announcement was a big surprise to most people (including testers). How much or how long the engineers have known about this, I have no idea and won't speculate on it. It doesn't really matter for the purposes of this discussion.

The point is that I believe the merger of Dreamweaver and GoLive - should it come to pass - will result in something that has the "net effect" of looking and acting like GoLive for the most part, but which will have a lot more goodies under the hood and maybe a more accessible document model.

IOW, I don't think you will ever see anything that approximates Dreamweaver or the MX interface, under the Adobe logo. Even if it is GoLive that gets scuttled with only bits and pieces patched into Dreamweaver's architecture, it still won't look like Dreamweaver as we know it now... whether it is called "Dreamweaver" or not (frankly it's probably a good idea to use the name because of its mindshare in the market).

The MX interface sucks IMHO, even if the application is very powerful.


"IV" (congratulations you have the most impossible name to remember, ever )

Great post. Obviously things like Elements will continue; I was just listing the core products for Mac users as I see them unfolding. Director is definitely the wild card, with all kinds of possibilities of techhnologies being brought to bear from Flash, Authorware, etc. I think the only barrier to making Director the main Flash platform is simply making an interface that more people can be comfortable with.

While Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Freehand's technologies may be leveraged relatively quickly (into CS3 perhaps), Director may take two full cycles or more to be converted into whatever vision Adobe has for it. Just the interface work alone is going to take a big effort. It needs to change in order to make it more accessible IMO, but they'd be crazy not to do something good with it. Director is still a one-of-a-kind app with very little competition of any merit.

I guess you could consider the new Final Cut Suite competition of sorts (for productions with more eye-candy and less complex user interaction) but not really. Honestly I consider After Effects to be an application that could use a bit of a makeover too, and there's all kinds of crossover potential there. The grouping of Director, Authorware, Flash, After Effects and possibly Audition, offer plenty of room to wonder and speculate. I think something very, very cool (and truly integrated) could spring from it all, given a couple years of development and testing time.

[Paul]

Great writeup...
http://daringfireball.net/2005/04/fish_head

Adobe is run by the "sales guys"

Think Apple in the late 80's and Microsoft now...

[admactanium]

Originally Posted by Moogs CoreMac: While I am privvy to certain pieces of information and opinions that come with the beta territory, I believe this announcement was a big surprise to most people (including testers). How much or how long the engineers have known about this, I have no idea and won't speculate on it. It doesn't really matter for the purposes of this discussion.

hardly anybody knew. i have a friend who is a very senior engineer at macro and they were notified basically concurrently with the press release.