by David Nagel
Executive
Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com
Macromedia today announced
it will be merging with Allaire Corp., the maker of Cold Fusion, an application
server that runs on Unix and NT Web servers.
According to a press release from Macromedia, the companies hope the new entity,
still to be called Macromedia, will "unite the Web design and development
communities and enable Web professionals to efficiently build the look of a Web
site and the application logic behind it—creating the best possible user
experience across multiple devices."
According to the release,
which went out late this afternoon, the transaction is valued at approximately
$360 million on a fully diluted basis.
"Under the terms of
the definitive merger agreement unanimously approved by each companyÕs board of
directors, Macromedia will acquire Allaire," said the release. "Rob
Burgess, chairman and CEO of Macromedia, will continue as chairman and CEO of
the combined company, which will retain the Macromedia name. Jeremy Allaire, CTO
of Allaire, will be the CTO of Macromedia, reporting to Kevin Lynch, president
of Macromedia products.
"The combined company
will evolve its Web development platform with support for open industry standards.
The first step is to deliver on Allaire's plan to bring the development model
of Cold Fusion to the J2EE standard. This will enable an approachable, productive
solution for building applications on the Java platform using industry standard
technologies such as XML and JSP. The next step will be to develop a set of application
services—reusable components and application logic—that enhance the
major software platforms...."
No word yet as to whether
the merger will result in a Mac version of the Allaire Cold Fusion Studio suite
for Cold Fusion development. We'll keep you posted as information rolls in. For
more information, visit http://www.macromedia.com.
