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Aug 09, 2005
News.com Brief on FreeHand MIA from Studio 8
News.com has posted a brief story on Macromedia's decision to leave FreeHand out of the Studio 8 suite and the speculation that this is somehow related to the Adobe acquisition (which would seem a logical assumption). Personally, I am not going to miss FreeHand as it didn't really suit my needs from a development standpoint. Although, when I did have my business, I used it to open Illustrator files (so rare, I can't even remember really). I am actually equally unlikely to ever use Contribute in my day to day work. To be quite honest, Studio is a great product, but I have come to learn to live without it. I am forced to use Flash here and there...and doing CSS in Eclipse isn't very intuitive (I have to have the W3C spec open while I do it)...and for those times I am forced into doing graphic design work I prefer Fireworks to ImageReady. So, I guess Studio becomes my tool of choice when doing my least favorite tasks?
Comments
Half truths abound. Here is the 100% factoid.
When Adobe bought Aldus the DOJ (Department of Justice) forced Adobe to choose "either" Illustrator or Freehand. They were not allowed to keep both and they sold Freehand off to Macromedia to comply with selling one of those two.
When the merger announcement came in April I posted this all over the web. That the DOJ would find this fact in their process and again they would be required to choose Illustrator or Freehand and sell off one or the other. Very straight forward really.
I'm glad to hear that it will be sold off and I hope that buyer does a good job with Freehand. I use it weekly and I hate Illustrator's workflow and feel. I use Director, Dreamweaver and Fireworks mostly.
Just an FYI on Freehand and the merger situation. Even if Macromedia had intended to update Freehand at some point, they certainly were savvy enough in April to realize that there was no reason to put engineers on the product with that DOJ/Adobe situation looming.
When Adobe bought Aldus the DOJ (Department of Justice) forced Adobe to choose "either" Illustrator or Freehand. They were not allowed to keep both and they sold Freehand off to Macromedia to comply with selling one of those two.
When the merger announcement came in April I posted this all over the web. That the DOJ would find this fact in their process and again they would be required to choose Illustrator or Freehand and sell off one or the other. Very straight forward really.
I'm glad to hear that it will be sold off and I hope that buyer does a good job with Freehand. I use it weekly and I hate Illustrator's workflow and feel. I use Director, Dreamweaver and Fireworks mostly.
Just an FYI on Freehand and the merger situation. Even if Macromedia had intended to update Freehand at some point, they certainly were savvy enough in April to realize that there was no reason to put engineers on the product with that DOJ/Adobe situation looming.
Thanks, you do shed some light on the subject, but I am not sure how you are disagreeing with the premise of the article, which seemed to imply that the decision was actually based upon merger considerations and not the "extensive research with our customers" that Macromedia claims. Your argument essentially says the same thing only in greater detail.
Hmm, "factoid" means something that's mighty like a fact...? ;-)
Altsys sold marketing rights to Aldus, not the products themselves. Altsys was the company which developed and owned FreeHand, Fontographer, and the rest. Altsys initiated the suit to reclaim their marketing rights from Aldus after that company was sold to Adobe. Then Altsys itself joined Macromedia in the mid-90s... different relationships.
At least, that's how <em>I</em> remember it, and goodness knows my memory has erred before.... ;-)
jd/mm
Altsys sold marketing rights to Aldus, not the products themselves. Altsys was the company which developed and owned FreeHand, Fontographer, and the rest. Altsys initiated the suit to reclaim their marketing rights from Aldus after that company was sold to Adobe. Then Altsys itself joined Macromedia in the mid-90s... different relationships.
At least, that's how <em>I</em> remember it, and goodness knows my memory has erred before.... ;-)
jd/mm