So, the big news today is that Adobe is buying Macromedia.

This is causing rampant speculation on message boards and mailing lists where tech writers congregate. Everyone wants to know what Adobe is going to do with Macromedia products like Dreamweaver, Freehand, and Fireworks, which compete directly with Adobe products like GoLive, Illustrator, and Photoshop. A lot of folks are worried that their favorite product is going to be canned.

I'm trying to take a wait-and-see attitude. I use products from both companies, and while I tend to find that Macromedia's products are a bit cleaner, a bit easier to use, and usually considerably better documented, Adobe's products are pretty darn good as well. If they kill or ruin Dreamweaver, I'll be mighty peeved, but I expect them to be cautious with Dreamweaver, at least. It's the industry standard for a reason.

The funny part is that this follows on months of rampant speculation that we've been having ever since Macromedia bought eHelp, makers of RoboHelp and RoboDemo. Macromedia has continued to develop RoboDemo (after changing the name to Captivate), and has rather conspicuously not continued to develop RoboHelp. They've been cagey about their long term plans for it, but all signs have been that they've been planning to put RoboHelp out to pasture.

So now the Adobe acquisition has a few people wondering whether this means anything for RoboHelp. (And especially if it means that Adobe will resurrect the short-lived RoboHelp for FrameMaker product.) My guess is no, just because I think that Help authoring is really small potatoes for companies the size of Adobe and Macromedia. If Macromedia alone didn't want to invest in it, I can't see the combined company wanting to invest in it.

(And I'm guessing it won't much matter to most tech writers, even diehard RoboHelp users. In my department, we've already got an eye out for an XML-based tool to jump to. Madcap Flare, developed by many of the original RoboHelp developers, is a strong contender. We're expecting that our current version of RoboHelp will finally become useless at just about the same time XML-based help becomes really well established. We'll see if we're right.)

Anyway, the one thing that definitely disconcerts me is that now all my key work software (FrameMaker, Illustrator, PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, Captivate, and RoboHelp) is owned by one company. Except for the stuff (Word, PowerPoint, Outlook) that's owned by Microsoft. It's starting to feel a little monopolistic in here.