I guess I got my answer. A few minutes ago I went to MacCentral to read my daily news and guess what was there?
More good news about Totally Hip and some confirmation that discussions between Macromedia and Totally Hip where taking place. It seems as though Totally Hip has decided that it is in their best interests to stay the course with QuickTime and to go without being bought out too soon.
This is Macromedia's loss and a major boost of confidence that Totally Hip has a focus on QuickTime to be a competitor of Flash and Shockwave.
Can't argue with the fact that Apple is now giving Totally Hip huge exposure for LiveStage off of Apple's Web site. TYhis will attract other courters that may want to acquire Totally Hip.
From MacCentral News site posted at 11:45 today.
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After reading this story it is very clear that Macromedia wanted to kill off LiveStage from reading this and that tells us that Macromedia feels that LiveStage and QuickTime are a threat.
maccentral.com 
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Macromedia-Totally Hip deal a no-go
Staff Report, email@maccentral.com
February 25, 1999, 11:45 am ET
Macromedia wanted to buy Totally Hip, but no deal was made, sources tell MacCentral. Totally Hip's chairman and CEO, Randall McCallum refused to comment on our lead, other than to confirm that officials from the two graphics companies met on Feb. 17.
"We'll remain independent to focus heavily on our QuickTime tool strategy," he says.
Sources tell MacCentral that Macromedia wanted Totally Hip to consider dropping their QuickTime approach in favor of ShockWave and Flash. We're also told that Macromedia has tried to hire Totally Hip engineers in the past.
LiveStage is a tool for creating, editing, and distributing Interactive QuickTime Rich Media via the Internet. QScript, Totally Hip's scripting language, lets Web designers create interactive media presentations for the rapidly growing ecommerce, education and distance learning Internet markets.
Shockwave is Macromedia's popular multimedia playback tool. It lets you view interactive Web content like games, business presentations, entertainment, and advertisements from your Web browser. Flash Player is the company's utility for viewing vector graphics and animation.
"Totally Hip is excited about QuickTime. We plan to continue making our QuickTime products popular," says McCallum. "Apple's focus is QuickTime and we plan to be right in the middle of it by creating the coolest QuickTime tools."
Totally Hip has some major product announcements coming soon, we're told, including some impressive photo products. You can also look forward to LiveStage Professional for both Mac and Windows.
Meanwhile, Macromedia is promoting Shockwave 7, released last month. The company was not available for comment at press time. |
