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Adobe Systems Audition, Encore DVD, and Premiere 7 are highlighted in a discussion of the circumstances of Adobe's pending acquisition of Macromedia. A successful acquisition would solidify Adobe's position in the Web development area. At NAB, most attendees agreed that Dreamweaver would have a longer life than GoLive, and that Illustrator would surpass Freehand. Fireworks is expected to droop because Adobe Photoshop dominates the industry, and Flash is expected to merge into Acrobat, or Acrobat into Flash. Regulatory challenges in approval of the acquisition are related to the fact that an approval would give the combined companies all but a de facto monopoly in the areas of illustration and photo manipulation. As for Web development, Adobe could show that it needs a powerful Web development tool for its Creative Suite, but the Macromedia acquisition will make three acquisitions by Adobe of leading Web development tools in the last six years. If Adobe does clear regulatory barriers, cultural issues will also have to be dealt with. Apple is also pushing into some Adobe categories. Among professional products from Adobe and Apple that compete are Adobe's acquired Cool Edit Pro, now Audition, which competes against Avid's low-end Digidesign Pro Tools LE. However, Cool Edit Pro also has to compete with Soundtrack Pro, which is a direct competitor to the higher-end ProTools TDM system, but is priced similarly to Audition.
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