Besides Microsoft products, there are two other companies that help me live in my web development world: Adobe and Macromedia. Today, Adobe announced it is buying Macromedia for $3.4 billion.
Both companies have great products; most of which are bundled into software suites. Neither suite offers everything I need. I prefer Macromedia’s Dreamweaver over Adobe’s GoLive; Adobe’s PhotoShop and Illustrator over Macromedia’s FireWorks; and specialized products like Flash and InDesign have no competing products.
It will be interesting to see how the combined company handles competing software products. Will they merge them into a single product; choose the best one and drop the other; or continue to develop them both? Only time will tell.