quote:
Microsoft Corp is believed to have trained its acquisition crosshairs on Macromedia Inc, lining up a deal that would throw enterprise Java into a spin, Gavin Clarke writes.
Industry and analyst sources believe Microsoft covets San Francisco, California-based Macromedia's Flash vector graphics design tool and player, which was radically updated this year.
Of course, it wouldn't occur to them to actually
innovate something that could do the same job, and actually do it better :eek: now would it?
quote:
Microsoft's own scripting efforts are regarded as relatively inferior to the cross-platform Flash, which now supports XML, Unicode, MP3 and HTML and which was taken closer towards Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) in 2002. The Flash Player, meanwhile, is compatible with most browsers and used on nearly 90% of desktops.
"Relatively inferior": that pretty much sums up Microsoft's
entire career, doesn't it?
quote:
A Microsoft acquisition of Macromedia would inevitably see Flash, and Macromedia's other cross-platform tools, tailored purely for Windows and .NET.
Analysts believe Macromedia is ripe for acquistion. Revenue for the most recent four quarters has been flat while net income is in the red. Macromedia reported an $11.6m net loss, down from $70.7m, for the fiscal quarter to September 30 on revenue that fell 2.2% to $85.4m. For the six months period, Macromedia has narrowed its loss from $182.4m to $13.6m while revenue fell 3.4% to $169m.
There is an answer for Macromedia: GPL it! That way, it wouldn't make
any difference whether or not Macro$uck acquired Macromedia. They wouldn't be able to pervert it from a cross-platform toolkit into a Winderz-only development environment
Even if they
did manage to take over Macromedia, (as if Sun, BEA, and Big Blue would let that happen) what're the odds that M$ would just royally fuck it up?
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Live Free or Die: Linux
Their fundamental design flaws are completely concealed by their superficial design flaws.
[ December 24, 2002: Message edited by: jtpenrod ]
