In a move that will be of interest only to graphics geeks--but it will be of interest to graphics geeks--Adobe is about to gobble up Macromedia.

Adobe Systems Inc., one of the world’s largest providers of document-design software, will acquire Macromedia Inc. in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion, the companies announced Monday.

Adobe’s software includes the popular Acrobat and Photoshop program. San Francisco-based Macromedia makes the Dreamweaver and Flash web-design software.

This would be kind of like waking up to find out that Microsoft had bought out Apple, only without quite the partisan bickering that would attend that kind of a moment and with two corporate cultures that mesh far better. This is the two biggest players in 2d graphic design and illustration coming together and leaving very little in the way of competition in the field.

Hopefully the lack of competition won’t mean a lack of innovation in the future.

Read the story.

Update: Jerry was kind enough to forward a link to the Slashdot response. In case you wanted to watch the real geeks tussling over the future of Adobe and Macromedia products. I’ve decided that Slashdot exsists to make me feel well-adjusted and normal by comparison.

Just sayin’…

Read the Adobe press release.