Yesterday must have been pretty slow for some folks, or maybe the thought of Adobe buying Macromedia was so intense, so alarming, that it shattered their world.
I don't know what the really big deal is. I can understand if you own a truckload of Macromedia stock, but to go on and on with speculation as to what this will mean for the future of digital publishing and...Yegods! What will happen with Cold Fusion? OMG!!! Flash? Freehand? GoLive? SVG? The roof is on fire! Ahhhh!!!?!!!?
It's like a Danny Elfman song being repeated a thousand times over.
Seriously, unless you've invested a large sum of money in Macromedia; unless you area vendor or contractor who's currently working with Macromedia and is still waiting for a Net 30 payment (good luck sucker); unless you are the President of the Cold Fusion Code Warrior Fan Club...who cares?
Adobe isn't likely to take everything, throw it into a Microsoft blender, and try to pass off Jello pudding as a triple dark chocolate truffle soufflé.
I say take a chill pill.
Hmmm, you know, I don't think I've ever written the words 'chill' and 'pill' together like that. It looks kinda funny.
Back to the topic of PagemakerMX 2010, I would much rather see designers and developers discuss how to improve the user interface at the Vatican. I mean come on, they are still using colored coded smoke signals to communicate to the outside world!
Smoke signals for Pete's sake!
Then again maybe there is something to be learned in all of this. They are, after-all, one of the largest, most successful global corporations in the history of mankind. Maybe if Adobe turned Flash MX 2004 into something more useful, like a smoke signal generator, life would take a turn for the better and we could all pretend to vote for a Pope.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Why hasn;t the Vatican started a Pope 2005 blog? Now THAT would be good marketing. I might consider not being atheist anymore if I could just see one picture of a room full of cardinals blogging away.
LOL! Nice, Mario. Just cross your fingers they don't write it in Latin.
Hey... The Nightmare Before Christmas was a good movie, don't diss the song... ;)
Wow, one company that overprices its software to buy another company that also overprices its software, well that's news. Seriously, if this happens, will Adobe actually have an all-in-one program that uses vector shapes? I could barely afford to buy Photoshop Elements and I'm saving up for Premiere Elements (yes, I'm cheap).
As far as the papal conclave process, I love all this history behind all of this. I mean, would you rather see the mafia or a dictator decide who would be the leader of the Catholic world? We still have some Americans fearing another Catholic president. The mass confusion of yesterday's smoke signals was worth the read.
I'm completely stoked about the buyout. Now there'll only be one freakin' studio-suite-whatever-the-hey-it-is upgrade to buy every year.
One company isn't always a good thing. Now that Adobe doesn't have anymore competition from Macromedia, what's the incentive for Adobe to make great products? Developers and designers are still going to by their products regardless.
They added bells too, just so there wouldn't be any confusion.
Okay back on topic I think the merger might lead to another company that is willing todo battle with Micrsoft.
As for myself I do believe this deal will be a huge deal that'll have a very large impact on the web-design/development communicty. And yes I do happen to be a Cold Fusion-Photshop-Macromedia biggot - does that qualify as a trifecta? But a Microsoft Killer in the Office space? Are you kidding me? Pardon my cruel chuckle. PDF/FLASH does not an Office killer make.
After selecting 265 popes, I imagine the system is pretty solid. The smoke system is merely binary. Hard to confuse them (except when the chemicals in the vote slips don't react fast enough to produce the right color right away, as was seen this morning on the second vote result). It's either yes or no. And the bells are just a symbolic gesture that goes way back.
Regarding Adobe buying Macromedia. I still think it is a good thing. There is a great forum thread of opinions going on over at Spymac. I am not sure how it will affect competition… I am not sure how much it will affect me even. I use more Adobe products than Macromedia anyway, so it may not affect me all that much at all.
Pope 2005 Blog? I think the Vatican missed a really good opportunity for smash hit reality TV show. Who wouldn't want to tune in to a see a group of Cardinals running an obstacle course through jungles of Borneo? Talk about appealing to the masses.
As for the Macromedia aquisition, I've long been looking to live in a world with the same interface and keyboard shortcuts.
"Chill pill"? Wow, I haven't heard that since the 90's. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Greg.
As long as Freehand is swallowed up in the merger, I'll be happy.
Ryan, what makes you think the wall-to-wall coverage of the Papal election *isn't* a reality show? Thank the gods it's finally over.
The Pope died?
I dont subscribe to the idea of adobe now being able to compete with MS. I havent used an MS product for web design and grpahics since I Was twelve, and web design is really all I care about when it comes to an application from MM or Adobe.
Macromedia and Adobe on he other hand are companies who's products I use on a daily basis, despite thier imperfections. This merger/aquisition will further stagnate an oligopolistic market, and lead to price hikes, lack of innovation and general apathy amongst the consumer. Thats just plain fact. Its bad news, but not awful.
You know, I hate to say it, but the Vatican has a good idea. Have a little fire, make a little smoke, and let everyone else spread the news.
IMHO, sounds like they're working smarter, not harder.
And regarding that merger thing? Remember when Adobe and Macromedia were taking swipes at each other a couple years ago over palette interfaces?
Seriously... the POPE died?!
When do they elect a new one?
Yeah, he died the 2nd of April and they elected a new one today. It is Kardinal Ratzinger from Germany and he calls himself Benjamin 16th.
Crap... and I didn't even get to write myself in as a possible candidate.
;)
I was hoping to get a call from Italy myself. I was going to choose the name Pope Storey I, the Greatest Storey Ever Told.
"Catholic Overlord" is something I could have really gotten behind, too. My heart wasn't really into it when I wrote myself in for "Water District No 3" during last months Kansas elections. (I didn't win.)
i hear the Vatican is a nice place to rule from. By contrast, I'm pretty sure I would have had to continue living in my apartment as "Water District Overlord."
Brian, if I'd known you were running, I'd have voted for you. If I had voted at all.
Hmmm...I thought chill pill was from the eighties; we used it in high school. Maybe Regina, Saskatchewan, is just culturally ahead of its time.
Ratzinger chose Benedict, not Benjamin.
Al Gore is still demanding a recount of the smoke signals.
Good choice. I prefer my Eggs Benedict as well. Eggs benjamin are freakin' gross.
I think they should have done a show called Catholic Idol and had the contestants perform one minute sermons in front of a panel of celebrity bible-bashers. Maybe Madonna would have converted back to Catholiscism for that. The final could have been a live global telecast from a big stadium in gee, I dunno, the US, not some chimney in some wacky little nation state in Europe.
I remember when Adobe used to release great products when they were ready, does anyone else remember how long we waited between Photoshop 2.5.1 and (cool - layers!) 3.0? Later they seemed to tow the line with Macromedia, and release flawed products with the same bugs and exclusions every year that people hope they will fix in the next version. My point is they behaved as pretty much the same company anyway.
Mario: Benedict XVI dawt com, the new Pope's blog.
Not quite what you ordered, but close enough.
MarkWard: (re: Adobe & Macromedia scuffling) -- Makeup sex?
PS -- I think that Adobededia should make SmokeStack CSMX 2005.
I can see the promotional goodies now:
I think it is important to people who have invested a great amount of time into Flash content or ColdFusion server technology. Some people make a living off of Flash. I like to make a living off of presenting information to people in a useful way.
Ahh my Airbag fix for the day. Greg you kill me and Brian Ford made me almost drop my laptop from laughing.
Think about the possible merger this way. Now the Creative Studio thingy will weigh a ton and cost the same as the Gross National Product of Ghana.
Oh No! forget about the rest, what about ....dreamweaver... I mean it doesn't always clean up your code properly and it might have a bug that causes it to just dissapear when you have many many windows open, but it still is a valuable tool that I know how to use just fine! that and FP. Damn adobe I don't want to use a : ..::Adobe Dreamweaver cs ::..
Notice that this merger announcement comes after the death of JP2? It's long been known the old Pope was against consolidation in the Design software arena. They were hoping to push it through during the period of catholic lawlessness while a new pope was selcted.
As for the new Pope, it remains to be seen how he'll react to the merger announcement, though it's not expected to be favorable. Benedict was his second choice for his papal name after he learned that Kaiser Wilhelm wasn't a saint.
I did notice a typo in your ranting. It's supposed to be PopeMakerMX 2010... not Pagemaker MX2010. The software company Adobe knifed the baby in the early part of the new century. Around the spring of 2006, Adobe decided as an effort to enter new markets to bring back the program, give it a new look... and a new name. The summer of 2008, Adobe released PopeMaker 1. Once of it's strengths was it's ability to create black and white smoke. Development continued and in the spring of 2010, release PopeMaker MX2010. Considered ground braking in it's ability to choose the color of the smoke to be emitted from PopeMaker. Adobe also introduce the concept of "pallets" to let the user to easily choose the color they want PopeMaker MX2010 to create.
Re: Greg's sidebar post re: ColdFusion and it "getting worse after the buyout" — I'd expect CF to be one of the first dogs put down by Adobe. CF was was junk to begin with and has little if any place in the market today. Adobe is about building the next portable doc format — think PDF for rich media. Flash and Dreamweaver are the MM products that are interesting to Adobe, all the rest will be folded in or obliterated. Good riddance.
Tom - I agree that Flash and Dreamweaver could and probably -should- stick around, but I think several people will also want to see Fireworks live on. (I don't use it OR ImageReady, so... I'm fairly indifferent.)
@ Julian: it's Benedict XVI, not Benjamin XVI. Personally, I'm waiting for a pope to choose the name "Corky"... (George Carlin)
I thought Jon Hicks was the last human in the world still using Fireworks.
Guys, the burning of the ballots is an age old tradition that shouldn't change. Sure there's technology, and wireless networks and cellphones, but that would defeat the purpose of conclave.
What the general public doesn't know is that the ballots are made from a special paper that when used to wrap various herbs and burned, produce a rich aroma that causes the cardinals to subcum to a trance-like euphoric state where they can more easily speak with God.
It's just their way of mourning before the new pope is announced. Didn't anyone see the huge shipment of Doritos being delivered at the backdoor of the Vatican?
As for the merger, it's bad news for consumers. Possibly good news for Corel and some of the open source projects that compete.
I have no idea how this is seen as competition for Microsoft, though.
DaringFireball summed things up well:
http://daringfireball.net/2005/04/adobe_translation
As for the vatican's use of smoke signals, well, c'mon...the current pope is still anti-women (SO last century), and anti-gay (SO last decade...but making a comeback). The church, itself, just pardoned copernicus in 1999...don't rush them...give them another millienium or so and they may move to the telegraph.
I live in Kansas. Being anti-gay is the most patriotic thing next to supporting the invasion of Iraq. I HATE living in Kansas.
Thanks for the sanest response on both the vatican merger and the macromedia adobe succesion I've read so far.
Mosh girl and subscribing to design in flight and seeing a Tighter Whitey again, man, you just made my day.
Last chance... anyone else want to try being funny? Sheesh. :)
Oh, and Mr. Asshat (your real name cometh not to mind, seriously): I like the new(er) horizontal layout of the Name/Email/URL on your comments. However, while tabbing through them, I discovered a problem with the tab order. Put your cursor in the "Website" field, hit tab, and up you go! I had to use my poor index finger to scroll back down past a zillion comments to post mine.
Make tab take me to Post, please? Pretty please?
[ FF1.0.3/Win2k ]
Tab goes to post for me. I'm done being funny. I'm going for somber these days. I think you should all know that I'm feeling very depressed.
He's right, about the tab index. The post button needs tabindex="5" else Firefox and gecko based browsers will jump to the first link or input in the page, not the next one.
As for the Pope. Well it seems to me the Bible is the one against homosexuality and women, not to mention a lot of other social freedoms now enjoyed. Any Catholic and any Pope has to be a conservative on these issues because frankly, the words of their Lord do not change. The media have been saying thats many have fallen out with the Catholic church on issues such as these. I'd say they've fallen out with the religion, not it's institutions, which do their job in upholding it's values.
And for Saint Peter's sake, let's keep the smoke. It's simple, generally works, is funny when it doesn't, and is another cool tradition from that bunch of scary looking guys that dress in bloody-looking gowns and speak in dead languages; better than the Royals these days.
An Militant Agnostic
Any Catholic and any Pope has to be a conservative on these issues
No, they don't.
Hi Greg, long time reader, first time commenter. Love your bog, but I just have to say you're way off base on this one. Adobe buys Macromedia is like Yankees buy Mets. It's just plain bad for the sport and anyone who cares about it.
And by "bog" I mean "blog"
That was a typo, not a put down (though I may use it at some point in the future...)
Well, I'm glad it was bought over by Macromedia and not a selfish uncaring company such as Microsoft! I do think this should cause a delay in the shipment of Flash 8 though ;) darn!
"Adobe buys Macromedia is like Yankees buy Mets."
Seen the standings lately?