Adobe’s $3.4 billion purchase of Macromedia is a sensible move for both players.
The friendly acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe bodes well for both companies: Adobe has been perceived as lacking direction in recent times. It has steadily built up its document management capability, helped by the previous acquisition of Q-Link in 2004, which added workflow capabilities to its document process management solution, known as Intelligent Document Platform. However, it has seemed out of touch with the movement elsewhere in the market, particularly in Enterprise Content Management (ECM), where large players have been busy consolidating.
The situation with Macromedia was the reverse, in that it had a clear strategy in offering advanced tools for Web page and application creation, built around the ubiquitous Flash engine, in anticipation of a growth in RIA. However, its targeting of the enterprise end of the market would have left it vulnerable to the marketing clout of Microsoft when it eventually releases the Windows Longhorn edition and Avalon project, producing a market disrupting presence in RIA and Smart Clients.
In combination, these companies make a complementary fit and a size that has a better prospect for success in the battles ahead. The evolution of Personal Digital Assistants, in particular the combination with mobile phones, will see a range of new outlets for Web content, beyond traditional clients. The speed and desktop-like behaviour of RIA is already making its mark in Web content. The PDF and Flash combination will make a formidable presence as users seek to exploit the latest technologies to make their documents richer.
The RIA market is currently made up of numerous small players, some of which ‘piggy-back’ on existing rendering engines like Flash. Macromedia with Flex is the largest name vendor in this market. Adobe’s strategy of bringing a vertical capability into developer activities is a canny move that will see the PDF ‘standard’ achieve a longer lifetime – the next move for Adobe must be at the other end of this spectrum, on the pace with ECM.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
