[RudolphRed]

Yes of course.

[JeffM]

"All you Dreamweaver fans seem to be particularly blind to the fact that there are a lot of GoLive develoeprs out there. Sure Dreamweaver is more popular, but if you have specific needs, then GoLive is the better choice. One single thing makes it the clear choice for me. Smart Objects.
I see Adobe taking GoLive's strengths and Dreamweaver's strengths, adding in what's cool in Cold Fusion and creating a FrontPage killer. That doesn't seem too bad to me."
Actually, I don't think anyone's forgetting that there are GoLive fans, I just think the presumption is that Dreamweaver has the bigger marketshare. Bottomline trumps "better product" just about every time. I think you're closer to the mark in that the real question will be which product gets "top billing' so to speak; "GoWeaver" or "DreamLive". My bet would be Dreamweaver heavy code with marketing as GoLive; shooting for the fewest disjointed noses.
"This is NOT about competing with Apple. This might even relieve the tension between Apple and Adobe a little bit. Adobe sees this as taking on Microsoft (as the article makes pretty plain). Not Apple."
True, but I'd bet there's plenty in between the lines for Apple to read. Final Cut Pro stung, and I have a feeling Adobe still isn't over it.
As far as a GoLive to Dreamweaver upgrade, my vote would be to hang onto that GoLive. Adobe has always been extremely liberal with their upgrad policies. :-)
JeffM

[spiderbat]

A prophecy by G. Orwell: 2014
Adobe acquires Macromedia
Apple acquires Adobe
micro$oft acquires Apple
micro$oft acquires itself [don't ask me how it works!]
micro$oft's micro$oft acquires all the computer users on Earth.
Computers may be legally used only by slaves of m's m, with programs by and for the benefit of m's m.

[bigpics]

Of the significant classic micro companies only four are left standing -- and only one is primarily an application developer:
MS Intel Apple Adobe.
Long gone (tho' a few of the products remain): Lotus, Ashton-Tate (dBase), WordPerfect (still the most controllable wordprocessor ever), Aldus, Digital Research (DR-DOS), Radio Shack TRS, Commodore, Compaq -- and even IBM has unloaded IBM PC's. And the list of the extinct goes on and on. Beagle Bros anyone??
(If you think I've left out any other major still standing players tell me who. HP was not at the original PC party, but LaserJets certainly changed the playing field, for example...., Xerox invented the original key aspects of the Mac, but have no PC products). Symantec gathered up some original pieces (e.g., Norton) and I guess Broderbund qualifies, but I don't how major a player they are, and like HP, Oracle and Sun migrated down into our area....
In this maturing tech marketplace where anyone can drop a graphics or video editor into the marketplace (or integrate pieces of same into an OS or a closely associated program, e.g., OS X and iLife, Media Center PC's, Avalon in Longhorn, etc., Adobe's survived as a major market force and leader not just because of "keen" omigosh products but MORE importantly because of their business ability to maintain margins and market share -- when many capable programs sell for a fraction of the price (JASC, Corel, etc.). Now they've played smart and tough to do so, and in the process have inevitably gored (and will continue to gore) a number of user oxes and sometimes not choosing the best parts of the technologies they've acquired.
I don't send $150/year to anyone else for updates of a "good enough" program I have, but Adobe gets me to do it.
But they risk marginalization everyday and have no choice but to bulk up against the continuing efforts of the Redmond Regime, and yes, to some extent, the rejuvenated Apple.
So go ahead and whine, but ask yourself whether would you rather have the results of mostly best of breed Adobe/MM apps coming out of this merger with a strong independent Adobe, or watch the company founder into irrelevance and leave us caught between an iPhoto/"Picture-It Pro" duopoly??
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

[ndelc]

It looks like I may be one of the only people excited about this. I'm an Art Director and I've been using both company's software for over 15 years. I used to be a diehard Freehand user, but over the last few years, as others have opined, it has really gone downhill (I agree that FH8 was the last good version). Last year I decided I'd had enough and switched to Illustrator. I'm happier with it than I was FHMX2004 but there are still some features of FH that I really miss. If they're able to combine the best features of both these programs, I'll be ecstatic. For web design, people have often told me that they prefer Dreamweaver but I've always been a fan of GoLive. Again, if they use the best features of both of these programs I think it will be awesome. As for Fireworks, I never thought much of it anyway, but if they can pull out a few nice features and add them to Photoshop that'll be fine by me.
I think Adobe has always been better at creating the UI (with the exception of Illustrator). Macromedia has terrible UI on almost all of their software (except FH) IMHO. I can't wait to see what Adobe will do with Flash as I've often heard that LiveMotion was much easier to use.
I understand what people are saying about innovation being stifled with no competition, but look, Photoshop has never had any real competition and they've done a great job of keeping it innovative. Adobe seems to be a company that cares about quality and I don't see any reason for this to change. My only fear is that they were already starting to get a little anti-Apple, but then so was MM.

[TheTSArt]

Could someone explain how this acquisition is somewhat of a "Longhorn killer?" To me, that's like saying Adobe Reader 8 will be a Tiger killer.
Unless Microsoft ships compatibility with whatever this Longhorn Killer is, will most Windows users even ever be able to use it? When I talk to the most Windows users, and say 'PDF' or 'Adobe Reader/Acrobat' they seem to have no idea what I'm talking about. And when they do, they seem to never have gotten it to work right.

[Schneb]

I am very concerned in that Director is my bread and butter where I work. Then again, maybe Adobe will actually improve it rather than ignore obvious bugs and slap on worthless additions.
But I would truly love of this merger is actually taking SoundEdit Pro out of mothballs!! SoundEdit Pro was THE best audio editor on the Macintosh and Macromedia just SAT ON IT! Now I no longer have Classic on my Mac, so I can no longer use SoundEdit Pro. And don't talk to me about alternatives until you can find me a sound editor that I can select a portion of audio and assign it a color. It did that and MUCH more!
One can only hope. Time to draft a letter to Adobe.

[tallscot]

The only Macromedia application I use is Flash. I hate it. I loved LiveMotion 2. Here's hoping Adobe puts LiveMotion 3 out with the latest ActionScript.

[robertRoss]

In reply to:

---

Well, it'd be far more accurate to say, "Flash and related web technologies is the biggest reason Adobe wants Macromedia." Flash is Macromedia's crown jewel. That's the key acquisition.

---

Well, I respect your opinion but disagree with it. I did, of course, include Flash in the web related products, but as for accuracy, these our just our opinions and your opinion is no less or more accurate than my own. I've seen Flash in the web space decline in use or more importantly, more intelligently used. I use it in place of Director for interactive applications outside and inside the Internet space so I agree it's a great acquisition. Nonetheless, outside Flash for the Net, Dreamweaver is huge in professional studios, and for good reasons. Adobe hasn't got that kind of marketshare. Maybe it's not attractive to them at all and maybe they'll kill a product that so many professional design firms use. If they hadn't acquired Macromedia (pending final approval) I doubt GoLive would have ever made a dent in the web authoring marketshare. New Dreamweaver due in the second half of the year. Let's see how it's received.
What does the acquisition of Flash mean for SVG?

[moose_n_squirrel]

In reply to:

---

Of the significant classic micro companies only four are left standing -- and only one is primarily an application developer: MS Intel Apple Adobe.

---

That reminds me of one of those Onion news parody articles that as usual was so close to the truth. It was about a mega-merger between multinational mega-corps. The Onion's perfect headline?
"Just Six Corporations Remain"

[jackaxe]

Oh freak as much as I like Adobe and most of their products, I hope that they don't f* up Flash. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
<]=)

[skbrn16]

Hmm...you can't cross-grade now? MM doesn't offer that? (I don't know as I hadn't checked that).
I've used both DW and GL for quite awhile, and I've never really understood all the hype behind DW and dislike for GL. For me, I prefer GoLive, and think DW is okay, but just. Sometimes I think the reported love for a product is partially produced by people jumping on the "me too" wagon without really trying ou the competition.
However, this does seem to somewhat explain why Adobe killed LiveMotion, if this was in the works or part of their plan at that time.
SK Brown

[JScott]

Wow, I disagree with all the negative views on this and think this is a good thing. I was a diehard Freehand user but was forced to switch to Illustrator a few years back. Illustrator has many incredible features that are missing in Freehand, 3D and Mesh tool for example, but Freehand is still easier to use. I'm hoping they will combine the ease of use from Freehand and power from Illustrator into one great Illustration application and I'll be sending Adobe my feedback about this.
As far as MM's other products, Adobe just paid 3.4 BILLION dollars for them. What do you think they're going to do, throw them in the garbage? Get real and relax people. Its going to be a couple years before we see anything come of this.

[jackaxe]

In reply to:

---

However, this does seem to somewhat explain why Adobe killed LiveMotion, if this was in the works or part of their plan at that time.

---

Maybe. I liked the idea of LiveMotion when it was first released since it mimicked AE's timeline and offered Photoshop compatibility, but it was a major step back compared to even Flash 4's primitive scripting language at that time. It definitely had more potential for tweening though.
If Adobe jacks up ActionScript and doesn't continue to develop it into a true language as Macromedia has beed doing, I'll be ticked off. I don't want intentional limits, nor do I want them to water Flash down so that it's all designer orientated. Believe me, I'm an artist first, but I love the almost endless possibilites that Macromedia's apps offer. I recall when Photoshop 6 came out, Adobe added new features, but also removed a couple of them, like being able to double clik on a layer to rename it. They put it back in with 7, but that was annoying for me personally. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
<]=)