Business Week on Elop

Via JD:

"In January, Stephen Elop sat on a chair in a plush conference room and talked about his decision to sell Macromedia to Adobe (ADBE). He was calm and jovial, describing the process of Adobe Chief Executive Bruce Chizen "courting" him. Elop talked about their first "date" at a cheesy Italian restaurant in Santa Clara, Calif. He went on about Chizen's assurances that Adobe needed not only Macromedia's market-leading Web design software (Flash and Dreamweaver), its developing mobile business, and sales contacts at big corporate customers, but the Macromedia DNA. What Chizen was after, Elop recalled, was the hipper, scrappier spirit that pervades the San Francisco company and that was lacking the relatively stodgier San Jose-based Adobe. (Bruce) wasn't just using us for our Flash," joked Elop at the time..."

I'm suprised there hasn't been more commentary on this. Everyone knows that Adobe bought Macromedia for Flash. Why else? Like they really needed to buy Fireworks and Freehand? Maybe you could argue that Dreamweaver was a good acquisition, but I tend to think of that more as a bonus than anything else. The fact is that Adobe just doesn't have the same vision as Macromedia. For example, Macromedia had a major focus on the eLearning space and Adobe seems to be less than enthusiastic about those products. A lot of people on a lot of Macromedia product teams have left or been forced to leave. Elop is just another casulty.

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2006/tc20060619_746167.htm