Adobe and Macromedia [via]:

Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.

Oh well. What a weird idea. Well, from Adobe’s point of view it’s not weird at all, but as far as users are concerned it’s mightily annoying. Adobe, the big mammoths that gives birth to big hairy mammothies of the powerful but expensive and bloated kind, absorbs the makers of Fireworks (I don’t care personally, but still), Dreamweaver (I don’t care personally any more, but still) and Flash (and now that’s serious). That’ll give them plenty of opportunities to make a big waste of the market and technologies. And to take a good, long Microsoft-like holiday until a brand-new competitor appears with another revolutionary technology, which isn’t going to happen soon.