The New Adobe-Macromedia Logo

Adobe Welcomes Macromedia to the Big Red A

Adobe-Macromedia are now one officially. The Macromedia Logo on the Macromedia Homepage is replaced with the Adobe Logo. Adobe will go from 30 products to about 70 products, and employees will undergo internal training. Macromedia’s logo will no longer appear on products.

Bruce Chizen continues as CEO in Adobe-Macromedia combined and Shantanu Narayen remains as president and COO. Macromedia’s CEO Stephen Elop joins Adobe as president of worldwide field operations.

As a result of the acquisition, Macromedia common stock is no longer being traded and shares of Macromedia common stock were converted into the right to receive 1.38 shares of Adobe common stock.

Adobe will reduce part of its workforce in light of its acquisition of Macromedia. Layoffs will occur in jobs where there is duplication. The cuts will be formally announced on December 15 when the company releases its fourth-quarter financial report.

With the acquisition, Adobe adds to its portfolio Macromedia’s popular Flash products used to view animation and video. Adobe’s own portfolio includes the widely used PDF (portable document format) and Acrobat reader. The Adobe-Macromedia Breeze Presentation by Bruce Chizen lays emphasis on mobile communication (Flash Lite) and integration of Flash with Acrobat PDF. Adobe Acrobat 8 is most likely to provide direct support for Flash swf files.

Adobe, which is based in California, said it will begin integrating the two companies’ operations, networks and customer-care organizations this week. Macromedia was based in San Francisco.

We may see software prices increasing as competition decreases in the creative marketplace. Adobe has so far refused to confirm which crossover applications will go and which will stay. However, Photoshop, InDesign and Flash will contribute to Adobe Creative Suite 3.0 in the near future, but Web design is at something of a crossroads.

Adobe Web site | Macromedia Web site