Adobe to phase out Freehand, GoLive

Adobe said that it will discontinue Macromedia Freehand illustration and and its own GoLive web design product, as the company simplifies its product line following the recent purchase and aquisition of Macromedia. Speaking at Adobe Live Conference in London, MacGeneration reports [report in French] that Adobe representatives told attendess that it will phase out the popular Macromedia FreeHand package in favor of its own Illustrator application---although another report says otherwise; the company, however, said it will continue to support the products for an unspecified period of time, but that it would focus its development on Adobe Illustrator 13, which is expected to ship next year as part Adobe Creative Suite 3--the much anticipated first native version of the professional suite for graphic artists and designers.[updated]

The report also notes that Adobe recently a published a guide to transfer the Freehand documents to Illustrator.

In addition, Robert Raiola, Adobe's Director of European Marketing, also said that the company would abandon development of the Golive web-design product in favor of Macromedia's popular Dreamweaver. The next release of Dreamweaver, expected to be release as part of Creative Suite 3 next year, will feature an updated interface to integrate with other applications in Adobe's Creative Suite.

Update: Another by German Mac site Macnews.de says that Freehand will remain a standalone product and that the company has scheduled a maintenance release of the product for later this year. Alexander Hopstein, Adobe's PR manager for central and Eastern Europe, said that product would remain available as a standalone solution.

Filed under: Graphics/Web Design