Farewell to FreeHand?

Awww maaaannnnnnn!

Remember when Adobe merged with Macromedia? We took a look at the new website the day it was announced, and were dismayed to see just how much Adobe branding there was - and how little of the Macromedia branding was left. We worried then that Adobe would slowly kill off the best of Macromedia's software - leaving the field free for all of the competing Adobe software to take precedence.

Seems like it's happening - with Adobe's announcement that they're going to abandon FreeHand and push Illustrator instead. Bloody hell!

I don't want to learn another piece of software, thanks! I'm perfectly happy with FreeHand! It does what I want it to do - I mostly use it for putting together website schematics to show clients - and I don't need anything else. And who has the time to learn new software when deadlines are looming?

Listen Adobe, I love Photoshop - it's definitely my graphics software of choice - I like it far more than Fireworks. But when it comes to illustration tools, FreeHand's all I need. Plus I don't think you have any illustration software that can do multiple pages, do you? Or at least, not one that does all the other things I need it to do!

Seems to me that the reason for this decision (like so many others) comes down to the almighty dollar. Adobe can't be bothered to continue to develop FreeHand, even though it's a great piece of software, because they'd rather spend more money on their own stuff (even though they supposedly merged with Macromedia). It pisses me off! It's not broken - why are you throwing it away? Why are you throwing away all that developmental work, all those person-hours that must have gone into creating Freehand? What a waste.

Well, I'm not switching. I'm sticking with FreeHand for as long as I can. I'm not spending my hard-earned $$ on another piece of software just because you say so! And Adobe - you'd better not think of messing with Dreamweaver! Just. Don't.

Technorati tags: FreeHand, Illustrator, Adobe, Macromedia, Photoshop, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, software, web design, web development, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.