HEY HEY! WE'RE ADOBE!

So remember back in the day when Adobe bought publishing software giant Aldus? (You remember Aldus, right? They were a powerhouse company that made PageMaker and also sold Freehand.) Well, the big problem back then was that Adobe sold one of the top illustration programs: Illustrator. Adlus sold the other: Freehand. In the end, Freehand wound up with Macromedia, the makers of Flash and Dreamweaver.

Ok, getting to the point: Adobe today announced a $3.4 billion deal to buy Macromedia. So it's 1996 all over again. Sure, one wonders (again) what will become of Freehand, Adobe certainly has no interest in the continued survival of that product. But Dreamweaver is also an issue. It's in direct competition with GoLive, Adobe's Web development software.

So, realizing that these two companies own both the premier illustration software and the premier Web development software, I would have to argue that this is a much bigger shakeup than the Aldus/Adobe merger. That was really about Adobe acquiring a decent layout program. This is bigger. This is Adobe becoming, unquestionably, the Microsoft of the creative community.