Kevin Lynch Archives

Macromedia and Adobe combining

Some exciting things afoot here! This has been a move that's been a long time coming as the relationship between our companies has been growing far beyond our early clashes during the frenetic times of the internet bubble.

I've gotten to know Bruce Chizen, Shantanu Narayen and others at Adobe over the past few years (I've known some other folks at Adobe for even a longer time) and we all share a common vision for the future of content and internet applications across multiple operating systems, devices and media. There have been times when this led us to conflict as we worked in similar areas, but today we find ourselves having worked on different parts of this vision and are in a very complementary position with our technology and our customers.

Together we will offer an incredible set of products.

Many creative professionals and web developers already use our products together, and we will be able to provide an even more efficient authoring and development environment to create, manage and deliver information. There are also significant opportunities to help digital video creators not only produce great work but also deliver it seamlessly over the internet.

In the rapidly growing mobile devices area, we are able to provide a very strong set of products for developers, content providers, and operators to create and deliver rich mobile content.

For enterprise developers, we can provide a wider set of development tools and solutions that help connect people and business systems, providing an effective, highly productive user experience. For mainstream business users, we provide a more complete environment for dynamic, engaging collaboration over the internet that enables both on-line and off-line work.

We will continue to be busier than ever here as we build our next generation tools, servers and client technology, and over time, the combination will enable a complete, cross media, rich client technology platform.

I'm looking forward to seeing both familiar and new faces at Adobe, and to working together to build excellent software to help millions of people better communicate and interact, enabling great experiences.

For further perspective, please also see the post today by Mike Chambers.

Note, because we are now in a regulatory period and this contains some forward looking statements about the combination of our companies, I have to include the following legalese in order to publish this blog post at all. Also, because this becomes one of the documents that have to be turned over to regulators, I have to disable comments (as those technically become part of the document). You can of course comment on your own blog as much as you like and you can also send us comments directly.

Forward-Looking Statements:
This document includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "expect," "estimate," "project," "budget," "forecast," "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "may," "will," "could," "should," "believes," "predicts," "potential," "continue," and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this document include, without limitation, forecasts of market growth, future revenue, benefits of the proposed merger, expectations that the merger will be accretive to Adobe's results, future expectations concerning available cash and cash equivalents [following the merger with Macromedia and Adobe's expectations with respect to future stock repurchases, including the timing and amount of such repurchases, and other matters that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from results expressed or implied by this presentation. Such risk factors include, among others: difficulties encountered in integrating merged businesses; uncertainties as to the timing of the merger; approval of the transaction by the stockholders of the companies; the satisfaction of closing conditions to the transaction, including the receipt of regulatory approvals; whether certain market segments grow as anticipated; the competitive environment in the software industry and competitive responses to the proposed merger; and whether the companies can successfully develop new products and the degree to which these gain market acceptance. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements in this presentation. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors is contained in Adobe's and Macromedia's most recently filed Forms 10-K and 10-Q.

Adobe and Macromedia undertake no obligation and do not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after this document. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this document. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.

Additional Information and Where to Find It

Adobe Systems Incorporated intends to file a registration statement on Form S-4, and Adobe and Macromedia, Inc. intend to file a related joint proxy statement/prospectus, in connection with the merger transaction involving Adobe and Macromedia. Investors and security holders are urged to read the registration statement on Form S-4 and the related joint proxy/prospectus when they become available because they will contain important information about the merger transaction. Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of these documents (when they are available) and other documents filed with the SEC at the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov. In addition, investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the documents filed with the SEC by Adobe by contacting Adobe Investor Relations at 408-536-4416. Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the documents filed with the SEC by Macromedia by contacting Macromedia Investor Relations at 415-252-2106.

Adobe, Macromedia and their directors and executive officers may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from the stockholders of Adobe and Macromedia in connection with the merger transaction. Information regarding the special interests of these directors and executive officers in the merger transaction will be included in the joint proxy statement/prospectus of Adobe and Macromedia described above. Additional information regarding the directors and executive officers of Adobe is also included in Adobe's proxy statement for its 2005 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which was filed with the SEC on March 14, 2005. Additional information regarding the directors and executive officers of Macromedia is also included in Macromedia's proxy statement for its 2004 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which was filed with the SEC on June 21, 2004. These documents are available free of charge at the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov and from Investor Relations at Adobe and Macromedia as described above.