adobe buying macromedia

Adobe, makers of the popular Photoshop graphics design tool and more widely used Acrobat PDF reader, are all set to acquire Macromedia, makers of Flash, on December 3rd - tomorrow.

This has huge implications for the world of graphic design, as Macromedia and Adobe are the only two giant software companies in the industry. While they produce competing products, everyone in the graphics design world by-and-large has chosen certain titles for certain design needs. For instance, almost everyone uses Adobe Photoshop for image editing and graphics creation, over Macromedia's fireworks, while almost no one uses Adobe LiveMotion instead of Macromedia Flash.

Apparently Adobe announced their intention to buy Macromedia on April 18th, but today is the first I've heard about it. There's been relatively little hype or press about this acquisition, despite the fact it creates a monopolistic empire in the graphics world similar to what Windows is in the operating systems world. As long as Adobe continues to publish high quality programs and support the major titles - and they will - this probably won't be a bad thing for anyone....