Adobe to buy Macromedia for $3.4 billion

Desktop publishing specialist Adobe Systems is buying multimedia software maker Macromedia in a $3.4 billion deal geared toward building a multimedia powerhouse. The all-stock deal should create a better-stocked source of tools for building and distributing multimedia content across a range of operating systems and devices, the companies said Monday. They stressed that the merger would allow them to expand more rapidly into the market for audio and video applications for use in handhelds and other gadgets.