What Drove the Adobe Systems-Macromedia Merger?
Last year Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe Systems, the software company best known for its portable document format (PDF) technology, spoke to Knowledge@Wharton in his San Jose, Calif., office. Responding to a question about competition, he said: “When I think about competitors, there’s only one I really worry about. And it’s one that happens to have $35 billion in revenues and $50 billion in the bank. And it happens to be in the software business. Microsoft is the competitor, and it’s the one that keeps me up at night.” Chizen has now, apparently, found a remedy to relieve that particular cause of insomnia, though it’s still unclear whether the cure will make things easier for Adobe Systems or aggravate them further. This week (April 18), Adobe Systems announced its $3.4 billion acquisition of Macromedia, a San Francisco-based software firm whose Flash and Shockwave products are widely used to deliver video and animation on the Internet. The boards of both companies have already approved t
