In a way it never used to be. I had dinner with Duane Nickull last night (thanks guy the Amarone was delicious), and before meeting him I saw the tail end of an Adobe developer event, apparently the first one they have run in the UK targeting .NET and Java types, rather than media dev types. The event evidently went well, the buzz was good.
But back to the subject in hand – the link above. Adobe just acquired a Romanian software firm called InterAKT that builds Dreamweaver extensions, but will also and give Adobe a more compelling Javascript story. [This is another easy merger integration through Eclipse case – building to Eclipse makes software company M&A far easier.]
This deal is notable because even if Flex (Adobe’s proprietary AJAX platform) is a success, we’re going to see plenty of Javascript rich apps out there first, so Adobe needs to embrace and extend, not go for full bore replace… So why not acquire a slick Eclipse-based Javascript editor?
Note that the Adobe is now building Apollo, an integrated PDF/Flash and HTML player, which it claims will be cross platform (hopefully Linux support won’t suck like it does now with Flash).
Anyway – the real point of the post is that Adobe doesn’t seem to be ruining the Macromedia community-building mojo, which was always a risk. indeed Adobe is becoming more open and more conversational and using blogs and other cool stuff. So we’re way beyond PDF shrinkwrap, and into the realm of enterprise and web cool – which is not a bad place to be for a software company.
Funny thing is I only read the first three pars and started blogging this… then I got to the end and saw that Ben Watson called me out.
It seems Ben may not have understood my argument though, or he is just goading me. I have talked about Adobe’s unhealthy Java obsession, its true – but that’s in the context of Java Enterprise Edition.
Eclipse is certainly not only for building JEE apps; its multi-language. Meanwhile ColdFusion is an edge case with tons of developers. Javascript is not much to do with Java. So I can’t see the problem. Now if Adobe had of acquired a JEE server vendor or something, I might be going negative, but making ColdFusion better and adding some Javascript chops seems like goodness to me – its the kind of thing developer communities love.
One last thing on Adobe- I am really enjoying working with the company- which is an occasional client. Ben and Duane are engaging as all hell, Tim’s AR blog is exemplary, and nobody at the firm ever tells me I am third tier.
Ben Watson says:
September 7, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Yes, I was goading…you caught me. And, in fairness I knew you meant we had an unhealthy obsession with J2EE (which we still do), and that you were right about it.
You are first tier all the way.
Robin Wilton says:
September 8, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Mmmmm… Amarone. [arghlarghlarghl….]
I’ve just had one of those infrequent opportunities to do a genuinely comparative tasting of a couple of Liracs – same year (2003), different makers:
Chateau d’Aqueria – very nice. Nothing wrong with it at all.
Chapelle de Maillac (Roger Sabon) – appreciably nicer.
Further down the price scale: Beaumes de Venise, Chapelle de Notre Dame d’Aubune. Soft and supple once it had breathed, but on opening, a very disconcerting bouquet of… well, dog-food, I’m afraid.