While the economy might be sputtering along, companies involved in delivering creative media creation tools are doubling down on their purchases.
In her article “Autodesk’s year of living acquisitively”, posted on Jon Peddie’s Graphic Speak site, Kathleen Maher reports that Autodesk went on a shopping spree for companies and technologies in 2011. The result? The San Rafael, California-based company has secured some 13 companies important in a range of markets, including game development and design, that are an important part of the company’s “strategy for growth” according to Autodesk CEO Carl Bass.
Autodesk makes products such as 3ds Max and Maya, important for creatives in the media and entertainment markets. While not directly competitive, Adobe is another company providing crucial apps to creatives that has been on its own buying spree this past year; purchases include Automatic Duck (an important part of the company’s strategy for ramping up development on Premiere Pro) and Nitobe, which makes HTML 5 apps that look to succeed Flash for the web.
One market analyst on Seeking Alpha has rated Adobe as “highly undervalued”, as the San Jose-based company is said to have a strong position in cloud computing via its Creative Cloud offering, which should further build its “brand recognition.”
