[Scoo]

According to this story in
The Register MS is looking to aquire Macromedia, in order to thwart Sun.

If MS goes ahead with this, we can kiss Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Director and many other products for the Mac goodbye. Why Apple isn't grabbing Macromedia for itself is beyond me.

As of Dec 23 macromedia's market cap was US$686.8 Million. Apple has the money, and Macromedia's software portfolio is superb.

Your thoughts?

[NeXTLoop]

Will the monopoly ever cease? What's M$ going to get into next... cars?

[wallinbl]

Originally posted by NeXTLoop:
Will the monopoly ever cease? What's M$ going to get into next... cars?

I'm sure they are working on that. I'm truly convinced that Gates' plans are much bigger than people generally think. Given 10 to 20 more years, we will be absolutely owned by Microsoft. If your PC, your PDA, your phone, your TV/home entertainment system, your car, your appliances, your car, your bank, your government, etc all run Microsoft software with some of their freindly licenses, they will own the world. No one will be able to do anything without consulting them.

I'm generally not a conspiracy theorist, but I am genuinely concerned about Microsoft. They are too dominant. If we are not careful, they will wield too much power over us.

[ChrisB]

Originally posted by wallinbl:
I'm generally not a conspiracy theorist, but I am genuinely concerned about Microsoft. They are too dominant. If we are not careful, they will wield too much power over us.

I agree. This especially concerns me when it comes to the world of the internet and developing for it. The net is supposed to be driven by international standards, and Microsoft has never been one to stick to them. The worst possible end to this is to let ANY one company determine the standards that we are supposed to use. There isn't much freedom in that. It squeezes out anyone who is somewhere in the "minority" and forces the masses to think or develop one way.

I'm concerned as well.

[philzilla]

no matter what anyone at Macromedia says about being equally dedicated to the Mac platform, they are rapidly becoming Microsoft whores

[vsurfer]

Originally posted by philzilla:
no matter what anyone at Macromedia says about being equally dedicated to the Mac platform, they are rapidly becoming Microsoft whores

Depressing thought.

Not altogether unexpected.

I have VPC Win 2000 and MS Office v.X (can u say slow and buggy?! even on a 1Ghz G4!) as necessary evils, but would seriously entertain DW alternatives if it became a MS product.

So far not keen on GoLive code, nor Freeway, nor Stone Studio.

Would love to see Bare Bones create and complete site management suite that generates clean code.

Or, would love to work on a project that provided a viable alternative, but how long would it take to develop and bring to market a Dreamweaver-like product for OSX? Whaddya think?