Adobe buys Macromedia

vaaaska

I was stunned when I read about this. My studio used to be down the street from Adobe in Fremont (Seattle) so I have a horribly biased opinion of these guys - because they came in and destroyed a wonderful part of town. I know people there...won't go into that.

What I'm curious about, and I'm sure y'all will have much more educated opinions than myself, but how possible is it to create open source applications that rival say Illustrator or Dreamweaver?

How close is GIMP to really being an app that can do enough of what Photoshop does for it to be used as a professional print-design tool?

Is it forseeable that open source design applications are about to arrive on the scene?

Or, is this purely a move on Adobe's part to kill competition, try to control Apple (they've been bickering for some time) and do whatever this will do to their relationship with MS (I don't buy the current lines that are being reported on this part).

Just curious...well, as always...

planetsim

Ive heard there already is a Open source version for Dreamweaver not sure on what it is called or if it even comes close to Dreamweaver (not that I like Dreamweaver).

GIMP for me is still in the stone age compared to Photoshop. It all starts with the UI. GIMP is all over the place while Photoshop is the single GUI with tools which are clean and easily accessible

Photoshop is much easier to use as well, GIMP on the other hand like I said is all over the place, making it harder to do things that are quite simple in Photoshop (well to find anyway).

Is it forseeable that open source design applications are about to arrive on the scene?

Where talking open source? Of course, many of them. In the near future probably not heaps but a few which may spark interest. As for rivaling Photoshop, Dreamweaver they will have some work to do to get close. I personally hate dreamweaver but looking at its purpose any john doe with little computer experience can create there own site which doesnt look bad. Photoshop which i dont mind is again easy to use and you dont need to be a Graphic Artist with 3yrs experience in a program to create a basic logo / graphic.

vaaaska

Originally posted by planetsim
I personally hate dreamweaver but looking at its purpose any john doe with little computer experience can create there own site which doesnt look bad.

Well, I only tossed that out there becuase it seems it's quite ubiquitous. I have a license for it but I never use it. In the past though, I've had projects that were based upon it's use (so the client could theoretically do the updates themselves).

I'm still wondering why Adobe released some of the Photoshop source to open source a while back...was there a plan for that actually?

Weedpacket

Adam and Eve, you mean? I was kinda wondering that myself. I thought perhaps it was to make things nicer for plugin authors, but they'd be going through the API anyway, wouldn't they?

goldbug

I'm just nervous about the fate Fireworks (I use it a TON). Seems like there's possibly too much overlap with other Adobe tools, and Adobe will probably kill it forcing its "replacement" to probably be more than just one package....or they'll keep it and make the price much more scary.

...That...and the fate of SVG, since one of its big proponents now owns the de-facto standard, Flash.

LordShryku

Originally posted by goldbug
I'm just nervous about the fate Fireworks (I use it a TON).

That was my first thought as well. I use Fireworks quite a bit here, and seeing as they already have their own software to push, I'm suspecting they'll take everything they like from Fireworks, roll it into Photoshop, and kill Fireworks off.

Sgarissta

Originally posted by LordShryku
That was my first thought as well. I use Fireworks quite a bit here, and seeing as they already have their own software to push, I'm suspecting they'll take everything they like from Fireworks, roll it into Photoshop, and kill Fireworks off.

I think another likely case would be to take some of Macromedias tools, like Fireworks, rebrand them, and push them as their "entry level" tools. To replace the Photoshop Elements type stuff. But then again...it's Adobe...so only time will tell.

vaaaska

Adobe bought Freehand once before from Aldus. They weren't allowed to keep it so Macromedia got their hands on it. The feds said too much of one thing is too much.

Both Fireworks and Freehand and possibly even GoLive or Dreamweaver (which ever one will be axed) should be sold to somebody else if things go the same way.

Quark, was...until the moment of the announcement...selling a special bundled version with Freehand. Does this mean that Quark might get Freehand?

As much as I loathe Adoble, Quark is worse though. And seriously hurting these days.

I'm wondering if Corel is a ripe candidate to get back in the game here?

pohopo

I'm just nervous about the fate Fireworks (I use it a TON).

Fireworks is almost definitely going to go as it is a direct competitor to Photoshop. And since Photoshop can do everything Fireworks can like work at pixel level and create vector graphics I do not see why they would keep both.

Photoshop is not that bad, I would even say it is more powerful then Fireworks.

goldbug

Originally posted by pohopo
Fireworks is almost definitely going to go as it is a direct competitor to Photoshop. And since Photoshop can do everything Fireworks can like work at pixel level and create vector graphics I do not see why they would keep both.

Photoshop is not that bad, I would even say it is more powerful then Fireworks.

Well, I don't have a recent version of Photoshop, so I can't say for certain it does everything Fireworks does, in a reasonably equivalent manner... but there's a reason for that. Fireworks MX 2004 cost me $150. Photoshop... not quite in that ballpark. (And I don't really need all the extra bells and whistles that the extra $450 would buy me in Photoshop)

pohopo

Well, I don't have a recent version of Photoshop, so I can't say for certain it does everything Fireworks does, in a reasonably equivalent manner

Because of an earlier topic we had on this I did some snooping and asked a good friend of mine who is a graphic designer and has used both Fireworks and Photoshop. She said at one time Fireworks had some features Photoshop did not, but then Photoshop copied all of them so it should do everything Fireworks does and more.

goldbug

Originally posted by pohopo
Because of an earlier topic we had on this I did some snooping and asked a good friend of mine who is a graphic designer and has used both Fireworks and Photoshop. She said at one time Fireworks had some features Photoshop did not, but then Photoshop copied all of them so it should do everything Fireworks does and more.

Well, that's good news. I've always wanted Photoshop, never had the need for it (in addition to FW)... maybe one good thing out of the merger might be a "softer" upgrade path---probably somewhere between the PS upgrade price and the full version price--would help lessen the financial impact of switching. Sad news for me, however, since I just upgraded (and license transferred) to FW MX 2004 last week 🙁

davidjam

Originally posted by vaaaska
Adobe bought Freehand once before from Aldus. They weren't allowed to keep it so Macromedia got their hands on it. The feds said too much of one thing is too much.

Both Fireworks and Freehand and possibly even GoLive or Dreamweaver (which ever one will be axed) should be sold to somebody else if things go the same way.

Quark, was...until the moment of the announcement...selling a special bundled version with Freehand. Does this mean that Quark might get Freehand?

As much as I loathe Adoble, Quark is worse though. And seriously hurting these days.

I'm wondering if Corel is a ripe candidate to get back in the game here?

Just stepped in...

wow! Adobe buys MM. That's big. I was around when Aldus PageMaker was the happening thing. I agree about Freehand, probably unload it to some other vendor. Illustrator will stay. (my fave app)

I can't believe you even said the word ... well the one that starts with a C ... vaska! :glare:

As for DreamWeaver, I'd say they will nuke it and make some GoLive import feature and an upgrade option for DW users,... no actually full price! because the end user will be stuck!

LordShryku

I'd be hard pressed to think they'd nuke Dreamweaver. It seems to be a bit more popular than GoLive. As far as business is concerned, name recognition is huge. Dreamweaver's has it's name out in the community (we even have a seperate forum for the thing), so if you get rid of the name, you potentially get rid of the sales as well.

Really though, Macromedia as a whole has their name in the community. Adobe could just leave them as a seperate entity of the Adobe Inc. Though, I could see a few of Macro's software going away.

vaaaska

Originally posted by davidjam
I can't believe you even said the word ... well the one that starts with a C ... vaska! :glare:

Yeah, I mispoke. C**** was never actually in the game. But I still believe they would jump at the chance.

davidjam

I'm surprised vB didn't censor it out! :eek:

Elizabeth

Originally posted by vaaaska
I'm wondering if Corel is a ripe candidate to get back in the game here?

Heh, V I was wondering the same thing.

And "C" isn't all bad - WP is much better at handling printed complex formulae than Word.

I've acquired an odd love/hate relationship with DW over the years, but as the product improves the "hate" part diminishes. I guess time will tell; I may find myself relying strictly on my good ol' TextPad.

Drakla

Originally posted by pohopo
then Photoshop copied all of them so it should do everything Fireworks does and more.

Does photoshop let you turn graphics into symbols yet? (I'm still running 7) as that's what I love about Fireworks, just rotate, skew, stretch and fondle something and it'll always look sharp, but after a few moments of shuffling in Photoshop and byte-rot sents in making bilinear fuzzyness. I never really cared for the Fireworks interface - it's always felt a bit amateurish. And dreamweaver should let you go back to the windows all over the place setup that they've ditched. Sorry if I've gone a bit OT.

Weedpacket

Originally posted by vaaaska
Adobe bought Freehand once before from Aldus. They weren't allowed to keep it so Macromedia got their hands on it. The feds said too much of one thing is too much.

After all, Adobe had already got Pagemaker.

vaaaska

Originally posted by Elizabeth
Heh, V I was wondering the same thing.

Nerdy blondes representin'!!! Peace out!!!