Back in 2005 Macromedia (creators of Dreamweaver, Flash, Freehand and more) were bought by Adobe (makers of Photoshop and Illustrator to name but two) in a deal worth around $3.4 billion.

Adobe and Macromedia were the two big players in the design industry, and I remember being a little uncomfortable knowing that there was now only one real choice. Competition is a good thing. We embrace the fact that there are other graphic designers around, it helps you stay on your toes knowing that you have to be good to get by. Now there was just Adobe.

In September 2006 Adobe bought a small Romanian development company called Interakt. Interakt were scripting Jedi’s – they wrote the most amazing extensions for Dreamweaver (called the Kollection) which helped speed up dynamic web applications. The first thing Adobe did on purchasing the company was to discontinue a few of these extensions, leaving us to search for alternative solutions to our developments. They renamed it “Adobe Dreamweaver Developer Toolbox” and sold it under the Adobe banner.

Last month Adobe announced that they would be discontinuing the Developer Toolbox extension, which now leaves a lot of developers potentially having to change their entire workflow in the longer term. I know that a good PHP programmer can write a lot of this code themselves, but the toolbox was a great time saver. So Adobe go from buying a company in 2006 to closing it down, taking the staff out and employing them in Adobe posts, and then discontinuing their products all within three years. I know it’s been seen many times before, and will be seen again, but I don’t have to like it.

When I set up my broadband account I carefully researched the options and decided to go with either Nildram or Pipex. They were both owned by the same company so I went for Pipex as they were a little cheaper. I remember thinking “These guys will be fine, anything but Tiscali”. Next thing I hear Tiscali decide to buy Pipex. “Oh well, at least it’s not ‘Talk Talk’” was my first thought, as they had been reviewed recently and came out with shocking results.

In Spring 2009 Talk Talk purchased Pipex from a struggling Tiscali. Bloody typical!!

And the point is? Well, I guess I’m just having a rant. I don’t mind change, in fact I embrace it – but only when it’s for the good of all concerned.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Technical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.