It?s beginning to look to me like Adobe has got the shopping trolley out once more and is very busy perusing the aisles for yet more new acquisitions. The industry giant has a great track record of being the first to spot a potential ?for sale? or ?everything must go? sign and generally follows this up with purchasing the latest offer.

Adobe?s latest purchase is the hosted services innovator Scene7 in a bid they tell us to add rich media capabilities to Adobe?s online portfolio.

Adobe Chief executive, Bruce Chizen said in April of this year that the companies "ability to grow is not based on major Merger and Acquisition activity. We will do small M&A, but they tend to be some hundred million dollar deals." Some small!

If this is the case then you have to wonder why in the past ten years Adobe have bought no less than ten different companies all varying in size, from the acquirement of the technological assets of Pixmantech, the Danish company behind raw shooter through to the $3.4 billion deal for Macromedia in 2005.

The answer, I feel sure, lies behind that billion dollar deal. Adobe bought Macromedia to corner and conquer the Flash based sector of the Industry, it was a successful attempt to position themselves as market leader and I think that the latest acquisition was for the same purpose, especially when you consider Microsoft?s recent launch of Silverlight. As one journalist very succinctly put it both sides are now ?Collecting weapons in the battle to win the hearts, minds and desktops of creative designers and marketers.?

The hearts and minds are one thing, but the desktops are entirely another.

Because of their track record and with the recent Alpha launch of Apollo one automatically wonders to what next will Adobe?s beady eye land upon in a bid to collect more ?weapons.? The forums and community news sites are currently full of the ?supposed? desktop battle between Apollo and MDM Zinc. Could it be at MDM?s door that Adobe will come a knocking? Well it?s a distinct possibility, what with Zinc in essence being Apollo?s only challenger.

Another journalist recently said of Adobe?s purchase of Macromedia ?it?s a case of if you can?t beat ?em, buy em?? Should Adobe be preparing yet another bid as we speak?

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by Garry Bailey (few years ago!)