Microsoft To Acquire Macromedia?

perly-king-69 writes "The Register is reporting that 'industry sources' say that Microsoft have Macromedia in their sights. Whilst it could just be holiday gossip, if they do pull it off it could have a significant impact on the cross-browser compatibility of Flash applications."

Comments

MS is really innovative?

[ackthpt]

I don't think that MS is any more innovative than the average goldfish. They have been acquiring for years. Sometimes acquiring technology without actually merging or buying up the company, but simply buying enough stock that, as a board member they get better access to the companies technology, i.e. General Magic (which is winding down liquidation of assets) It's practically the american way. MS only real gift is that they've made rafts of cash on the operating system and office products, everything they've sold is derivative.

Re:If Microsoft makes Flash proprietary...

[feldsteins]

MS will keep the standard fairly open. Remember, MS are moving towards semi-open standards - .NET is usable by anyone, but MS gets to declare what the standards are.

"...usable by anyone, but MS gets to declare what the standards are..." will eventually play out like this:

1. Microsoft keeps Flash "fairly open," leading to even further adoption of the technology.

2. Flash becomes even more ubiquitous than it is today, basically becoming a fundamental building block of the internet. Since it is found everywhere and is supported by all browsers and ships on every computer with every platform...developers feel they can use it willy-nilly. And they do.

3. Competing technologies all but fade away. With a ubiquitous, well supprted and free solution...who needs them?

4. Things start becoming a little less open. "In order to accomodate their customers" (heh), Microsoft starts with the proprietary hooks. Functionality that only works in Windows (or IE or - insert microsoft product name here -). Or at least it works in their stuff first and or best because of what they are changing.

5. Suddenly other browsers and platforms are using the internet only with permission from Redmond. (Apple: "You'll give us access to last years internet content if we bundle Windows Media Player instead of Quicktime? Sure thing, boss! Whatever you say!" Linux community: "If only the stupid sheep of the world would download, compile, configure and use -insert name of open source scalable vector graphics widget with % 0.00145 marketshare here - instead of that proprietary shit! Then our open source browser would have a chance. By the way, anyone get MSFlash plugin 7.2 to work in Mozilla yet? Yes I know the current version is 9.6. Shut up already!"

5. Somewhere Steve Balmer pets a hairless cat and grins because he knows he now has one more big lever to lean on in order to keep Windows and Microsoft on top.

Or on the other hand, it could be that Microsoft is, as you say, actually "becoming a little more honest". But I think the smart money would be on my scenario.