Microsoft Buying Adobe?

Jokes aside, it makes perfect sense for both of them. Adobe's CS and Microsoft Office are naturally self-complementing desktop giants. Both companies make a ton of money selling desktop software to the enterprise, yet outside of Flash/Sliverlight battle they don't cross each other paths.<p>I, for one, welcome this development. It brings some hopes for better performing Flash, which I hate with a passion but its a fact of life. Flash is in need of some engineering muscle. There are many things Microsoft can possibly do to it and most of them are good, see: kill it -&#62; good, open source it -&#62; good, merge with silverlight -&#62; good.<p>Same thing with other Adobe products: they used to be best in class some time ago, but I'm convinced that company cannot code anymore, but Microsoft still can.<p>No way this is bad news. The worse that can happen is nothing changes.<p>Edit: also, lets stop this nonsense with applying "still somewhat profitable" and "dying" to these companies. Both are doing <i>great</i> financially. Adobe's profits from CS keep breaking records - look at <a href="http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201006/Q210Earnings.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/2010...</a>

I suppose this is feasible if Microsoft is looking to acquire Adobe's enterprise customer base - the PDF, document management, etc part of the company. Having Air/Flex/Flash might also be nice, but doesn't seem like a good fit for Microsoft's traditional Windows-centric strategy (one they should abandon, in my view - the days of owning the market via the desktop are rapidly coming to a close).<p>What I'd love to see is Microsoft buy the Flash/PDF side of the company, and then the creative arm (CS, the type foundry, lightroom, etc) be spun off into an independent company that was once again run by people passionate about design and great software.

This has one major implication that makes me want to root for the deal to close:<p>Photoshop &#38; Flash would be covered by an MSDN subscription.<p>So, instead of dishing out $1000 for CS6, we need only enroll in BizSpark (or whatever Microsoft's next version of its ISV thing is called), and pay $400 for all our OS's, all our dev tools, and all our graphics stuff in one package. Now all they need to do is buy Codesmith, Red Gate and Jetbrains so that I never need to pay full price for software again.

I've often wondered why Apple doesn't buy Adobe, kill all development for PCs, and leave Microsoft high and dry in the creative market.<p>Just saying...

<i>Such a deal could be worth $15 billion or more based on Adobe's current market value.</i><p>Adobe is worth less than half of Facebook? Rolls eyes

Regarding: "Adobe's shares rise as much as 17 percent"<p>Just a small detail, but the above bullet exaggerates the indicative reaction of the market. It was up 17 percent for an instant because someone fat fingered and bought it for $30.00 exactly at 3:08pm (Added: 12 minutes after the announcement at 2:56pm), maybe a little excited to buy in. Really it is up 10-11%, which is a strong and positive reaction, but there is more uncertainty factored into the price than what the bullet would seem to imply.

Can everyone commenting on this please remember that Adobe produces software aside from Flash and Reader?<p>Those two may interfere with your browsing habits but just because you don't come into contact with anything else Adobe produces doesn't mean it doesn't have some importance in the software industry.

"Adobe, Microsoft expected to collapse into new black hole after getting nearly 90% of the world's shitty C++ together under one roof."

I think MS time and money would be better spent buying much smaller web companies that innovate and grow. Adobe is old and shrinking.<p>As a .net dev id love to see them grow the community beyond enterprise.

I'm not sure I understand: how would a merger between these two companies get past the regulators? I doubt they'd let Apple jump into bed with Adobe, let alone Microsoft...

As a thought: If it does happen, I can totally see an MS Office GRAND DELUXE edition that puts together Office and CS. And I would guess that the price would be less than the sum of the individual packages.<p>That wouldn't be too bad, really.

"Microsoft Flash".<p><i>shudder</i>

...because two bricks float better than one...

I just don't see the synergies of a full takeover beyond owning the rights to the PDF format. A full takeover would result in Microsoft paying a high premium for a set of desktop design applications (CS suite) that are not part of its DNA. Microsoft excels at building excellent tools for developers, but never seems to do a good job with design tools. Adobe is the opposite.<p>What's more possible is some sort of partnership that enables stronger PDF support in Office, improved Flash support in Windows Phone and better integration between Office and CS applications.<p>Microsoft's primary business is selling Windows and Office desktop licenses. Since many Adobe CS users also own Windows and Office licenses, better integration between the two suites would be beneficial for both companies. Introducing a new mobile phone OS based on Flash/Flex/Silverlight or some other combination would not be worth the acquisition cost.

An interesting move from an analytics perspective. They'd get Omniture and valuable data about the biggest advertising budgets spent online.

This would be quite interesting. If Microsoft bought Adobe, what would happen to PDF on Mac? What would happen to Silverlight? Would the next Office use PDF as a standard format?<p>Then there's the creative suite. What would happen to photoshop? Dreamweaver (or MS Frontpage 2012 as it'd be renamed)? InDesign (or Microsoft Publisher 2012 as it'd be called)?<p>Also think about the other side of it. The Acrobat team would be forced to actually secure their reader instead of relying on researchers to do it for them.<p>I think this can only be a good thing(tm). As Dan Kaminsky once said, "What could possibly go wrong?"

"Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, recently showed up with a small entourage of deputies at Adobe’s offices to hold a secret meeting..."<p>Ballmer's not that dumb, is he? Sounds like posturing for Apple / Google.

From the original NYT report [1], the discussions seem to be less about acquisition, and more about “Apple and its control of the mobile phone market and how the two companies could partner in the battle against Apple.”<p>Indeed, acquisition is a real and fascinating possibility, but surely there are many other ways they could work together to fight Apple, if that is what they want to do.<p>[1] <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/microsoft-and-adobe-chiefs-meet-to-discuss-partnerships/" rel="nofollow">http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/microsoft-and-adobe...</a>

I'm really scared of a future where microsoft forces itself into my life by acquiring everything I use on a regular basis.

Microsoft should start thinking about acquiring a web company instead. One day, they will look back and realize that, in retrospective, they shouldn't have held on to the desktop. An analogy could be made with newspapers who held on to the paper. Time might prove me wrong, but I doubt it.

This would be the final end of the desktop application. Adobe is the last remaining large independent maker of mass-market desktop applications. Everyone else has been crushed between the web, Microsoft and open source.

One big upside to this that I can see is that it might result in standardization of the Adobe CS GUI. It's been getting weirder and weirder with every new version, to the point where nothing I know about how Windows programs are supposed to behave applies.<p>That said, considering that MSFT just f<i></i>*ed up the Office GUI (ribbon, etc) I probably shouldn't hold my breath.<p>Seriously, what's wrong with menus and windows?

I was wondering if MS was going to buy Adobe 7-8 years ago, if not 12, but it seems odd at this point.

If this happens, I wonder how long it will take to fold the Adobe contacts and products into BizSpark.

This is probably one of those high priced mergers that wont really help MSN compete with Apple. Doesn't Apple hate flash? And isn’t HTML5 the future? I think MSN would be better off spending money on a smaller company that can really help its mobile strategy.

Microsoft wants to bundle flash into their web browser and phones just like google?!

It's funny but I avoid Adobe products more than anyone else these days - an 'honor' held by Microsoft for a very long time. I don't know what is worse Acrobat or Flash at this point (esp. on mac).

Apple really needs to buy Adobe. Apple's response will determine how much life they see in their "truck" (OS X) line. This, coupled with Intel's comments on Apple, really make me wonder.

Could they be doing this so flash 11 includes silverlight support?

What would this mean for Flash and Silverlight? Would MS also can the Expression Studio as well? Why would the same company put out Illustrator and Expression Design?

Microbe?

umjames - ColdFusion is built upon Java, of course it runs on the Mac as well as 'nix. If you go to a gathering of CF developers eighty percent of them are running Mac laptops.

Does that mean the new runtime will be called FlashLight?

Well, are Flash and AIR supported on Windows Phone 7?

WHY?!?! Why, God, oh WHY!<p>Adobe has long lost any luster it might have had, and has descended into outsourced maintenance-ware. An acquisition like this would be about as smart as Intel acquiring Mc(rap)fee...<p>EDIT: aCquisition.

Please, no.

My god, with them together, what great software will they make!

God help us.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

I feel like there's a joke in there somewhere... Something about how an adobe (proper noun) is naturally small and soft. Seems somehow fitting for the two companies to become one, no?