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May 30, 2006

software

Adobe axes extraneous software packages

Posted May. 30, ’06, 10:41 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Software

AdobemediaUpdate: Jeff Carlson from TidBITS points out that the chain of transmission on the following news is somewhat tenuous, as it was originally translated from a report in French by someone attending the Adobe Live conference in Europe. Official word has not been released by Adobe at this point.

In a move that ought to surprise exactly nobody, the Voltron-like conglomerate that is now Adobe/Macromedia has announced the demise of two of its popular software packages: Macromedia FreeHand and Adobe GoLive.

Why? Because it’s got two much more popular packages in the same spaces, namely Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Dreamweaver. Now, I’m not a graphics person, so in the Illustrator vs. FreeHand debate, I’m mainly an uninformed bystander. I know people who like and swear by both products. But Dreamweaver vs. GoLive is my bailiwick, having previously earned my bread and butter as a web designer. While I didn’t use either program extensively, I had tried both, and I have to say that killing GoLive is probably the way to go. The best selling points for that app were its integration with the rest of Adobe’s suite, and since I have to believe they’ll be putting that integration into Dreamweaver, it’s kind of a no-brainer.

GoLive and FreeHand will continue to be supported for the time being, but no further development will take place on either of them; instead, teams will focus on Illustrator and Dreamweaver. It has yet to be seen if the acquisition of Macromedia will bring benefits to consumers, or merely eliminate competition in the creative markets, but we can always dream. And, apparently, weave.


5 Comments

Ernie Franic said:

No, integration with Photoshop, InDesign, etc. wasn't the best feature of GoLive at all.

The best feature was its ability to collaborate with multiple designers on a site, without the kludgy file-lock based check-in/check-out that Dreamweaver has had for years.

GoLive's CSS support and layout grid is years ahead of Dreamweaver, too.

I just hope Adobe comes up with a decent migration path for current GoLive customers: porting GoLive sites with lots of templates and components will be a big pain in the neck otherwise.

EF

May 30, 2006 2:07 PM
Jeff Carlson said:

It might not be dead yet. See this entry at TidBITS for the whole convoluted pattern of news: http://www.tidbits.com/.3c7a8c70

May 30, 2006 6:07 PM
Dan Author Profile Page said:

Thanks for the heads up, Jeff. I've amended the story with a warning to that effect, and a link to the TidBITS piece.

May 30, 2006 6:48 PM
Jeff Carlson said:

Thanks, Dan! I should also note that Glenn Fleishman did all the work. I just added the link above. :-)

May 31, 2006 12:03 AM
dan said:

I have been using Golive even before adobe bought it. And it is an excellent application to build websites from. It gives you all the tools and techniques you need. It may a little bit difficult to learn but that is with every professional application.

Golive is only for professionals!

June 9, 2006 5:49 AM

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