So Long, Macromedia, and Thanks
Monday, December 5, 2005 at 5:28PM 3 Comments 
It's time now for a bit of reflection as we tip the proverbial forty to a great company. Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia closed over the weekend, after what seemed like forever. When Allaire was acquired by Macromedia in 2001, there was much the same feeling, especially since a server company was being acquired by a bunch of graphic designers.
But Macromedia really knocked it out of the park. ColdFusion MX saw the conversion to Java of the venerable application server and opened the door to object-based development. The first signs of integration with Macromedia were present with Flash Remoting. Then, with ColdFusion 7, the Macromedia touch to ColdFusion really took hold, with Flash forms, FlashPaper integration, and server-side PDF generation. With the Adobe merger, ColdFusion's PDF generation should become a lot slicker. And the evolution of Flex and the move to RIAs under Adobe should continue unabated.
Outside of the great advances on the server side under Macromedia, the community also benefited. Macromedia greatly opened up over the past couple of years, encouraging blogging, owning up to mistakes, and embracing the community to the extent that many developers have personal relationships with the staff and a direct line to the wish list for future versions.
Lots of folks are wondering what's going to happen to the toolset, especially where there are overlaps. I don't do a lot with Web graphics, but I happen to love Fireworks and always found Bloatoshop to be a lot of overkill. Will FreeHand and Illustrator be combined, or will both be marketed? I've never known anyone who actually used Adobe GoLive. Dreamweaver - for all its shortcomings as a pure IDE - really has captured the professional Web developer market, and I think Adobe recognizes that.
Adobe's Developer Relations Group Manager Ben Watson drops some hints about the server side:
Adobe + Macromedia...equals some best kept secrets that our team and many other teams have been doing to build some great sample applications - Macromedia Flex with Adobe LiveCycle, Macromedia ColdFusion with Adobe LiveCycle, Macromedia Flash with Adobe Acrobat and more... stay tuned to our developer centers for more on this.
All we can do at this point is hope for the best. Adobe has deep pockets, renewed competitive interest from Microsoft, and now, the best Web development technology and tools in the world. It is an incredible opportunity, and I'm optimistic. I think the Macromedia spirit will survive.
Reader Comments (3)
You're just saying that because you don't know how to use Photoshop. It has incredibly rich functionality, but sure -- if you're only using an image editing program to crop and resize photos, I guess Photoshop wouldn't be your cup of tea.
Also, I hope you are as poetic and elegiac at my eventual passing as you are at the merging of a software company. That'd be nice.
Jen - No one denies that Photoshop is incredibly powerful. But over the past several years, Adobe has gained a reputation for aggressively pursuing change in the application, at times frustrating the user base with features that weren't exactly clamored for. But you have a point - I've never taken the time to really get to know Photoshop because it isn't the best tool for Web graphics. So I haven't mastered how to graft Jennifer Aniston's head onto the body of a random naked chick. Sigh.
And to your second point, no need to worry. I'll be long gone by then, and you'll have to keep my blog updated for me.
wow. i wish i could say i knew what you were talking about, but i don't. kelly would, though. he's geeky like you.
i just wanted to tell you, if i haven't already, that i'm back online. AND i have a picture of your baby on my fridge. i love her name by the way. it makes me think of picnicing in the English countryside. not that i ever have. yet.