Adobe Director

So what does the future hold for Director once Adobe completes its purchase of Macromedia? Let’s speculate:
I doubt they will sell it off. As many have pointed out, that would create a competitor for Flash. Plus, it is a profitable product, so they will most likely keep it.
They could shut it down, slowly. This is a possibility. But is it any different than what Macromedia is doing right now?
I’m betting that they will continue Director’s development. I’ve heard that Adobe uses Director for training projects. So they should be aware of its capabilities and have some fans of Director on the inside. I also remember that Adobe’s long-ago nemesis, Quark, had a Director-competitor in the works. This was before Flash. So no doubt Adobe has at least thought of adding a product like Director before.
It would be called “Adobe Director,” of course. It will probably have native PDF support, rather than 3rd-party Xtras for embedded PDFs. Adobe has a thing for 3D, as seen in their Atmosphere product. So maybe they will see Director as the 3D tool that Atmosphere never was.
Another thing to consider is the Shockwave.com contract. This old agreement is what makes every Shockwave install show a big fat advertisement for Shockwave.com in exchange for a little money. Mabe Adobe will trash that and return Shockwave into a more professional-looking product again. The same for the Yahoo! Toolbar nonsense.
Adobe has deeper pockets than Macromedia ever did. The current market capitalization of Macromedia is under $3 billion. Adobe is up at $14 billion. So maybe Adobe will look at Director, determine what needs to be changed/added to make the product all it can be, and then go ahead and do it.
We can hope…

Posted on April 20, 2005 at 1:04 pm by Gary Rosenzweig · Permalink
In: General

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  1. Written by Casey
    on 4/20/2005 at 9:10 pm