At the end of last year Adobe completed its landmark acquisition of Macromedia, so how are things shaping up?

Its been almost nine months since Adobe first announced its intention to acquire Macromedia and over a month since the deal was finalised. Now this has happened the combination of the two companies has created one of the world’s most innovative and diversified software groups offering a massive range of some of the industry’s strongest software brands.

Now that the dust has settled, the newly enlarged Adobe is setting about the task of integrating Macromedia into the wider group, making sure customers see a smooth transition in the process and starting to pull the new business together.

As well as making sure the two company’s wider operations, networks and customer care organisations are seamlessly joined together, Adobe has marked the first stages of the integration by releasing three brand new product bundles designed to bring together the best of Adobe technology with the interactive strength of the recently released Macromedia Flash Professional 8 and Studio 8 software.

The Adobe Design Bundle brings together Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium with Flash Professional 8 software; the Adobe Web Bundle combines Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium and Studio 8; and the Adobe Video Bundle couples Adobe video solutions with Flash Professional 8.

At the same time Adobe will be using the next few months to get out on the road and meet customers and users of its creative software face to face on its Fully Loaded Tour.

Taking place in March and April visiting cities all across the UK, Fully Loaded will give Adobe users a chance to find out how to really get the best out of their software. Split into four sessions covering InDesign CS2 and Creative Suite 2, Studio 8, Photoshop and the new Adobe Poroduction Studio, the sessions are designed to allow users to dip in, update their understanding of the software and find out how to achieve more.

Finally, to really get the new year under way, Adobe has posted a public beta of its new Lightroom digital imaging solution on its Adobe Labs web site. With its modular, task-based and streamlined environment, Lightroom's goal is to deliver a complete photography workflow and, through consultation with users and feedback from photographers, Adobe aims to work towards a final release which will contain the best features for the complete professional digital photography environment.