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

Not the end of the world

[IamTheRealMike]

Too bad for Microsoft that Macromedia documented and made the SWF format open a long time ago now. Even if they pulled the flash player from any platform except IE on Windows, we still have libflash.

Re:Not the end of the world

[Nosher]

That's true enough for existing versions of Flash. It would not be true of any Microsoft-based version of future releases. I guess they'd sooner turn it into some ActiveX-only control and re-write the language, which would completely stuff up any future cross-browser compatibility. As far as plugins go (speaking as a webmaster), I've never minded Flash too much: it can be neat, compact and you can *reasonably* guarantee that your target audience can play it. That would be blown away the second Micro$oft got their anti-Java mitts on it - it's clear from the article that they would want it to support .NET and Windows platforms exclusively.

Re:Not the end of the world

[Genom]

Someone with mod points mod the parent up.

Dreamweaver is what MS has their sights set one -- not Flash. Think about it. MS pretty much controls the browser end of things through IE. What they don't control is the creation of webpages. Most of the industry that I've been in contact with have a very low opinion of Frontpage, but a very high opinion of Dreamweaver (when it comes to GUI HTML editors). Acquiring Macromedia will allow them to either integrate Dreamweaver into Frontpage, or kill it altogether. Either way, the acquisition gives them a major hold on the webpage creation industry.

It would also give them a chance to crush Cold Fusion once-and-for-all...replacing it with ASP.NET, of course... (not that I see many CF sites anymore - most are either ASP, JSP, or PHP nowadays)

Flash would just be frosting.

Re:Not the end of the world

[sg_oneill]

You beautiful soul! I wish it was that clean.
Unfortunately I have three letters that indicate that this is not the case. Here they are ;- G! I! F!... Yup, GIF. At present, if you use GIF files, you are tresspassing on Unisys territory.

But there is a more important reason to get REAL WORRIED by this tech.
Dreamweaver has become an equaliser of tech for serverside stuff.
Dreamweaver does coldfusion brilliantly;- No shit... It's macromedia tech. But it's the fact that Dreamweaver MX is probably the ONLY true PHP+MySQL aware+compliant wysiwig editor. This is not because of a minority share for said platform, but because adobe & MICROSOFT have other agendas.

If we lose dreamweaver, we lose the fact that a HUGE amount of mid-range content will not work with mozilla, and will not work with apache. If we lose dreamweaver, we lose yet another independant platform to microsoft.

And if we lose dreamweaver, we lose yet one more way that the average dumb-joe can escape microsoft.

Think about it, and then post ideas on how we can block this.

Anti-competition laws suggest that we can. It's up to US to figure HOW.

Let's do it.

If Microsoft makes Flash proprietary...

[altgrr]

...what effect would this have? It could go either way - the Mac/Linux/Mozilla users, who are in the minority, would be disgruntled by this, and would either give in, or just not visit sites that choose to use a proprietary format.

IMHO, any proprietary format on the Internet is bad. Flash is all very well for doing supplementary things (games etc) but not for features essential to the operation of a website. Common sense would tell you not to use Flash for content provision, but people seem to think otherwise.

It is most likely, however, that either this deal will not go ahead, or that 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. Perhaps MS are actually becoming a little more honest, on the face of things?

Let's look back at history for a sec

[inteller]

For those of you born yesterday here is a recap: Microsoft bought Liquid Motion back in the late 90s. It was actually a contender for about 3 months but Flash quickly surpassed it. Microsoft quietly concedes this battle. Then around 2000 Microsoft acquires Visio. Again, pushing the visualization theme here. About this time they also come out with a very capable Photodraw application that even uses Adobe Photoshop plug-ins. Clearly Microsoft hungers for visualization software in it's portfolio. And Dreamweaver is kicking FrontPage's ass. It should be no surprise to anyone that Microsoft wants Macromedia. With this piece of the puzzle they could finally off Adobe and their pesky little PDF format.

Re:Let's look back at history for a sec

[Idarubicin]

With this piece of the puzzle they could finally off Adobe and their pesky little PDF format.

Why on earth would millions of businesses, governments, and individuals want to go to all the trouble of migrating billions of documents from PDF (designed for forms and printed documents) to a 'standard' that's best known for making web sites more annoying and slower to load--and is available on fewer platforms?

Re:Let's look back at history for a sec

[constantnormal]

Why on earth would millions of businesses, governments, and individuals want to go to all the trouble of migrating billions of documents from PDF (designed for forms and printed documents) to a 'standard' that's best known for making web sites more annoying and slower to load--and is available on fewer platforms?

I believe the answer to this is tied up with the same reasons why millions of people use other Microsoft products. One could ask why people would prefer a bugridden claptrap OS from Redmond over OS/2, which was far and away the better product for many years.

Why don't people look for the best solution to their needs, and instead look to what others are doing?

People don't want multiple platforms -- they want the rest of the world to conform to their own way of doing things. This replays in politics, religion, culture, etc. We're basically herd animals. All that Microsoft has to do is gain a marketplace majority, and the world will bleat a path to their doorstep.

Macintosh and Linux users are basically aberrations, which is why they will always be a minority, no matter how much better their respective systems are.

So if Microsoft can make it less convenient to use PDFs, and more convenient to use MDFs (Microsoft Document Format), and even offer a one-way compatibility to allow PDF users to migrate to MDF without converting, the game is won.

Powerpoint is the Document format of the Future. (puking noises)

Re:MacroMedia, Borland, Rational

[Lobo]

Yes they are innovative! They created the web browser...er...they created that really neat program Visio...er...they created the office suite...er...they created the GUI...er...

Kill Flash!

[Flamesplash]

Maybe this will be one of those technologies MS buys just so it won't go anywhere in usage or development. I would not be saddened by such a thing. Am I the only ones who is sick of flash splash pages to websites? Just give me my content damnit. :)

Who do you want to own today?

[curtisk]

Flash would give Microsoft access to tools for building rich interfaces on both desktops and mobile devices, furthering .NET.
furthering .NET? Has .NET even left the starting gate in all seriousness? Other than the msn portal.
It would be sad to see another innovator get gobbled up, I've been impressed with macromedia since the ol' Director days, it just seems shitty when a big guy buys up a brand or name then tries to pawn it off as their own.

The saddest example of late is Infogrames trying to ride the name recognition of Atari of all things! WTF? LOL

Re:Who do you want to own today?

[Pope]

it just seems shitty when a big guy buys up a brand or name then tries to pawn it off as their own.

The way Macromind became Macromedia after they and Adobe split the Aldus software portfolio?

The way Macromedia bought Flash from Futuresplash?

Ask yourself whatever happened to Extreme 3D, SoundEdit and Xres...

Well, must get past DoJ

[os2fan]

Remember, the DOJ blocked the Microsoft attempt to acquire Intuit. Maybe they could block this attempt.

Suppose that some "public interest" suggestion could be put to bear on MS acquiring companies in related fields....

Folks this is a rumor

[ces]

And a rumor posted on The Register at that. I'll believe this when I see it confirmed somewhere that doesn't appear to be cribbing from the Reg or Slashdot.

This also assumes Macromedia wants to be bought by Microsoft, even if MS is attempting a hostile bid Macromedia may go looking for a white knight.

I could see IBM, Adobe, or Sun ending up with Macromedia in the end.

Re:Folks this is a rumor

[didlybom]

Cringely wrote about it a week ago, in his InfoWorld column. Still a rumor though.

No, that is not a fact

[EvilAlien]

That is a fear, a suspicion, certainly not a fact. It may be a fact that you worry about this coming to pass, but what is the credibility of an AC? Heh.

Anyways, I'd be more worried about cross-platform compatibility for anything with a Mac OS preference or that Apple is the vendor for. Quicktime, anyone? I'd sure love it is Apple would release Quicktime for Linux. Microsoft has a stronger record of cross-platform compatible products that some. They have to, by law. There are bigger and better things for them to crush (Java lawsuits with Sun being a good example), which is why they do paradoxical things like hand Apple a barrel of cash to stay afloat.

Dreamweaver, Microsoft, standards

[galaga79]

I hate to think what Microsoft acquiring Macromedia would mean for webstandards. Dreamweaver by Macromedia is certainly one of the most popular WYSIWYG HTML editors around, and because of that there has been groups such as the WaSP have been work with Macromedia making sure it is complies with the web standards out there. Who knows what Microsoft would do with Dreamweaver seeing that is in direct competition with Frontpage.

More fuel for the Anti-Trust Holdouts?

[-cman-]

I wonder if (this report is in fact true) this will add fuel to the WV and MA appeal to the settlement? Can those states use post-judgement behavior to show that the settlement is ineffective and that M$ is not changing its Monopolistic ways?

In Other News. . .

[snitty]

. . . Microsoft plans to aquire the DOJ.

Re:uh oh

[rknop]

Does anyone else think that if this happened it would be the absolute worst thing that ever happened to the web?

No. A bunch of worse possibilities immediately leap to mind:

• The September that never ended
• Graphical mail clients with proportional fonts
• HTML E-mail
• the "blink" tag
• Web-based forums overtaking NNTP
• "WYSIWYG" (a complete misunderstanding of the web) page makers which write awful, awful, bloated code
• Telecom monopolies on the "last mile"

...but most of all....

• The introduction of Flash in the first place!

-Rob

The big days of Flash are over.

[Qbertino]

Despite the utter rubish some of the typical no-clue-on-design anti-flash zealots on /. kept crapping out in recent years, flash had a clear and distinct position in WWW content.
Until less then a year ago there was no way you could get CSS working the way it was intended on spec-release about 7 years ago. Flash was the *only* way to get a consistent visual apperance across Browsers with solid fonts and stuff that went beyond table-slicing (tables not being intended for pushing pics around anyway).
Flash was *the* tool to actually achieve what CSS promised for so long. With nearly every browser finally fully CSS 2 compliant, this is now a non-issue and put's flash in the extra gadget area so many slashdotters allways suspected it in. With SVG - a format that's substancially easyer to handle in the dynamic content serving dept. - and open architecture web 3D poppingup left right and center and the mighty Java Media Framework finally out, asskick competition for flash is closing in.
Considering this and the fact that the Uber-Web Tool Dreamweaver had it's days when it's templates where the next best thing to the then expensive and unwieldy dynamic content servers this is might actually be the wrong time for M$ to purchase Macromedia. Macromedia never got the curve to professional level tools, Dreamweaver aside. Flash MX coding is as crappy as ever, Director 8.5 still tops the hitlist as the most bizare software joke under the sun, PHP kicks Cold Fusion up and down the street and no f*ckin' way is Kava or JRun gonna stand against Suns free libs and the ever-growing Netbeans popularity combined with the bazillion and one Java/Apache OSS projects.

Bottom Line: I kinda hope that M$ buys Macromedia and drives it against the wall at full speed. Hideously bloated with ColdFusion-ASP-MX.NET intergration or whatever they think might be a cool name for a dead-end product strategy.

Re:The big days of Flash are over.

[GlassUser]

Newsflash: The web in general and HTML and CSS specifically were not ever intended to allow an author to enforce a certain visual style. That's what MPEG is for. Simply put, you do not know what I will be viewing your web page on, and you don't need to be making assumptions that my television can display 4pt font, or my PDA feels like displaying 800x600 "content". The internet is not an electronic magazine. Get with the century.

Re:Don't only focus on the negative!!

[b_pretender]

now, microsoft's "save as html" feature in word, excel, etc definately produces some cryptic, overly bloated, and nearly unusable html..
</i><img src="pix.gif" width="1" height="1"></p style="messy">

<content type="MSWord" created="Microsft" data="useless"><include stylesheet="useless_bloated.css">What are you talking about? MS Word's save is <h1><'/h1>HTML is how I learned to write webpages. </p style="mozilla_noncompliant">

Dreamweaver is the prize!

[MonTemplar]

And its not just flash, there is another Macromedia product that I'm far more worried about Microsoft getting their hands on: Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver has quickly become the standard HTML editor. Can you imagine what's going to happen if it starts making code like Frontpage does now?

My bet is that Bill and Friends have their eyes on Dreamweaver more than Macromedia.

Don't know about the US press, but the reviews I've read over here in the UK regarding UltraDev (and subquently of Dreamweaver MX) are of the opinion that they are the tool for web development, and leave FrontPage in the dust.

In fact, one commentator over here, John Honeyball, writing in PC Pro, went as far as to say that Macromedia, with their MX products, put Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET to shame when it came to doing web development with IIS/ASP and .NET !

Of course, being in a position to 'persaude' ColdFusion shops to move to .NET would help, but Dreamweaver, if they could get their hands on it, would be a major coup for Microsoft...

It's about killing Apple

[hatless]

As only one person in this whole thread seems to have noted, this isn't about Flash plugins or Cold Fusion MX. It's about cutting off Apple's air supply. Just as Apple has been buying up a few pro video and music tool companies and discontinuing the Windows versions, this would be a means for discontinuing Mac versions of some of the killer apps that are run heavily on Macs. If you can't get Flash and Dreamweaver (and to a lesser extent, Fireworks, Director, Freehand and Fontographer) for the Mac, the Mac suddenly loses at least a third of its pro user base. Lose the web designers, and you also lose the people and companies that use Macs for that and other purposes. Once they have to move web people to PCs, they'll move the Photoshop/Illustrator people to PCs, too. Then the Quark people. Poof. Within two years, the only professional uses for Macs will be video production and some music.

Game over.