Adobe & Macromedia

This one's going to take some time to play out, but the implications could be far-reaching. Adobe has a good record of creating standards. PDF wasn't the only candidate for document exchange, but it was handled quite well in hindsight, and Mac users in particular have benefited from this (initially in terms of creating documents that Windows users could read, and now in terms of supporting PDF display very well at system level - and much more to come in Tiger). I never had confidence that Macromedia could really turn Flash into a true standard; they seemed far more concerned with tying it into their proprietary (and frequently Windows-centric) creation tools than in developing it for the common good. Perhaps this will change over the next few years. While Adobe may kill GoLive, it may equally mutate into a tool for creating SWF and SVG on a more equal basis, or provide the basis for merging the two formats. Adobe aren't perfect by any means; their behaviour over After Effects on the Mac has been appalling, but I think they've had their nose bloodied enough by that one, and they won't want to repeat the fiasco of Premiere being destroyed by FCP. Motion 2 HD has a very interesting means of incorporating content into AE, and that may indicate a willingness for the two tools to co-exist to the benefit of all (I'll be incorporating After Effects into our media creation strategy now, so there's a couple of extra sales for them already ;-). I'm optimistic about this overall, but then I'm a futurist, and maybe that's just my orientation.