back to article Microsoft, Adobe merger? Yeah, right

A merger between software vendors Microsoft and Adobe has been reportedly dismissed as “nonsense” by sources inside Redmond. The New York Times reported yesterday that MS boss Steve Ballmer and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen had been in talks recently, sparking speculation that a buyout could be imminent. As The Register and …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rumour..

    rejects Microsoft as nonsense.

    That's fixed it !

  2. Tom 7

    It sounds like a great idea.

    Once their coders get together the resultant worms should wipe them both out of existence by the end of the month.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Exactly my thoughts

      The greatest mistake ever on my Mac was to install the reader. It exhibits all the signs being designed for a Windows platform - it wants to update FAR too often..

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Marriage made in heaven

    Bug ridden security lacking bloatware meets bug ridden security nightmare...

    1. dssf
      Black Helicopters

      merge the microsoft and the adobe... what do you get?

      microbe...

  4. johnvile
    FAIL

    why would that happen anyway?

    "Adobe’s stock rocketing on Wall Street yesterday following the rumor. "

    JFC These Wall Street people must be real Muppet's.

    A collision between Adobe and Microsoft would produce an even more expensive none-responsive operation system.

    Ms-Bloat 8. I can just imagine it shipping on about 50 DVD's

  5. jai

    $$s

    the rumour of the merger sends Adobe's stock price upwards

    that would mean that Microsoft would have to pay more $$s for Adobe

    so today Microsoft dismiss the rumour as rubbish and presumably the stock price will fall accordingly, saving M$ cash

  6. Ian Davies

    New company called Microbe

    I can't claim credit for that; read it somewhere else.

    1. dssf

      That we both thought of it gives just reminds me of ...

      Simultaneous creation. Too bad some patent sytems won't allow for it where one inventor isn't top-dogging another inventor (coerced royalties or else be destroyed...)

  7. RichyS
    Pint

    The size of a cow.

    If anyone can eat a cow in a single sitting, it's Steve Ballmer.

    Beer icon, as he'll need something to wash it down with.

  8. Bilgepipe

    Yum

    "a bit like trying to eat a whole cow in one sitting."

    A mere light snack for Ballmer.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doesn't make sense.

    One company that has lost the innovation, buying another that has lost its innovation ... might make sense in another world, but not this one.

    If I remember correctly, HDR was the selling feature of CS4, I can't remember if there even IS a CS5 let alone what the "killer feature" of it is. ... oh ... apart from needing the latest version to read the RAW files of your new camera, of course.

    1. Glesga Snapper
      Grenade

      A Title.

      You obviously don't use photoshop to make a living then.

    2. ThomH

      Big features of CS5

      As I recall, Creative Suite CS5 brings:

      • that automatic clone tool type thing so that you can select objects and have them automatically removed and the background filled in with meaningful photographic detail;

      • proper Cocoa ports and 64bit support for the Mac across the suite;

      • an iPhone compiler for Flash, which the App Store police banned and then unbanned.

      Those are, I think, all the 'big' ones. No doubt bullet point two cost a considerably larger amount of development time than would appear to be obvious to an end user.

      1. Glesga Snapper

        Also...

        For me, the new masking and edge detection tools, alone, made it worthwile.

        HDR is a bit of a parlor trick really; there are companies making specialist HDR software that's much more flexible, when compared to Photoshop's implementation. Still, it has been improved again in CS5 though.

        Every new version brings lots of incremental improvements (important workflow ones, not Ooh Aahh marketing ones) that makes it worth upgrading; things like improved 16bit support and the ability to use smart objects for more and more things.

  10. Il Midga di Macaroni
    Gates Horns

    Won't happen

    Remember they tried to get hold of Yahoo too?

  11. JohnnyWas
    Pirate

    Madobe anyone?

    The post is required, and must contain letters. - title says it all

  12. Michael C
    FAIL

    Yea, non-starter

    The government would simply never allow that merger to happen. I would not doubt after the rumor started someone at both companies got a ring from the FTC saying "Um, yea, joking right chums?"

  13. Timo

    Sorry fresh out of titles

    On the one hand, they could buy Adobe, pick the best parts out and kill the bug-ridden products.

    On the other hand, Microsoft probably doesn't mind it right now if Adobe gets all of the attention for having crap software.

  14. John F***ing Stepp

    A win for everyone.

    All of your fail in one place; one shop stopping as it were.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Adobe-IBM would make more sense

    There's too much overlap between MS and Adobe; the only reason MS would do it is to emasculate Adobe. With IBM, there's much more synergy.

    1. deadlockvictim
      WTF?

      Such as...

      Maybe it's because it's 08:11 on Monday morning and I'm still asleep, but I'm trying to think of the overlap between Adobe and Microsoft. Can you give me some examples? Flash and Silverlight are the nearest ones that come to mind.

      When I think of the Microsoft products we use, I can even think of an Adobe product that I would use in its place and vice versa: Excel? SQL Server? Windows Server? Visual Studio? Photoshop? Premiere? Illustrator?

      An Apple buyout of Adobe would seem more logical to me, especially as Apple would be getting control their once killer-app and the iCEO could finally banish Flash into Wilderness.

      My insufficiently coffee-adled brain is open to correction.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    A merger of microsoft + adobe...

    ...would be like blending dog turd and cat turd together, and pretending it's chocolate milkshake.

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