My thoughts on "Acrodobia"

Well I thought I would post my thoughts on THE aquisition, just to add some ideas to the process but also perhaps to clarify my own feelings on the subject.

Personally, I have a sick feeling in the bottom of my gut. All the press and media hype coming out of the US is doing it's best to make us all feel good about it. But there's just something that's not making me feel right. As one person has blogged already, "at least it's not Microsoft doing the aquiring". Here here.

My main thoughts / concerns on the situation are:

1. Adobe and server products? Picture this ... a group of high level Adobe execs sitting around a boardroom table .. "I'm getting a bit tired of document publishing, let's get into enterprise level server products as well to make life interesting." What the? I'm sorry but this just doesn't quite do it for me. No one disputes their position in digital imaging and document publishing, but I fear for products such as Flex, Breeze and even Contribute.

2. Go Live didn't work, so let's just buy Flash. If at first you don't succeed, buy your competitors. I think of all the Macromedia products, Flash is the most safe. I mean you would have to be nuts to mess with the flagship product, but my concern is for the player and where it will go. I read on the FAQ document being distributed that people are wondering if the Acrobat Reader and Flash player will converge. That would be a pretty impressive player, and I think Adobe would be the main beneficiary of such a marriage. And as someone else has already pointed out - isn't it funny that 8ball has been shown to have all these great design effects (e.g. drop shadows and other image effects on movie clips) being added to it, and then the makers of Photoshop go and buy the whole kit and kaboodle. Conspiracy or coincidence ... you be the judge :)

3. Brand power. Yes, Adobe is a bigger company. Yes, Adobe has a strong brand awareness in the market. Yes, Adobe has industry-standard products in their suite. But have you noticed the strength of their marketing and message lately? C'mon, it's been lagging and I just hope that all the great work that Macromedia has done over the past 2-3 years in regards to creating a positive energy in the market around its products won't start to slide because of this take-over.

4. Please keep going on mobile, please ... As you can see from recent posts here and info on the DRD site, we're going full steam ahead into Flash Lite and mobile development. It's something we're really excited about. The press releases say that mobile will remain a key focus for the new combined company ("Acrodobia" perhaps :) and I hope they keep their word. If they drop that ball, then it's a good indication that they have no idea what they're doing.

I probably will have more to write about it as the discussion rages and more details come to light. Needless to say it's going to be an interesting 2006 if the deal goes through. And all you geeks out there with those Cold Fusion 5 Reference Language long-sleeve Tshirts and Flash 3 and 4 Tshirts ... your eBay starting bids just went through the roof!