Windows Phone Thoughts: Adobe and Macromedia Set To Become One

"Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by both boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive, at a fixed exchange ratio, 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of Macromedia common stock in a tax-free exchange. Based on Adobe’s and Macromedia’s closing prices on Friday April 15, 2005, this represents a price of $41.86 per share of Macromedia common stock."



Okay, this is definitely big news! Macromedia are well-known for delivering digital media content for the web, and Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia may bring forth some exciting results. For example, tighter integration of the Acrobat and Flash technologies may appear sometime in the near future. But with all merges, there are always people on the sidelines who predict nothing but multi-billion dollar flops. Your thoughts on this one?

Update: I originally had this posted in the "Off-Topic" section, but now I believe it may be relevant to the future of mobile devices, so I've since bumped it to the "News" section. Some news companies such as Reuters are now reporting the following: "Adobe, best known for its Acrobat document-sharing software, said the deal would help it meet rising customer demand for audio and video options that are compatible with hand-held devices. Macromedia also gives Adobe access to the dominant animated graphics software on the Internet and which is also aggressively expanding into mobile phones." Will this merge spell a new wave of digital media content for PDAs? Time will tell.