At one time it was fair to say that Adobe and Microsoft were enemies, rivals in some product categories, such as Web apps. So we had Adobe Flash competing against Microsoft Silverlight, and may the worst product please disappear.
At one time, in fact, Microsoft tried to develop a suite of graphics apps to compete with Adobe’s Illustrator and Photoshop. But that was just another Microsoft initiative that failed.
But why would Adobe and Microsoft suddenly consider a corporate marriage?
The answer is, of course, Apple. Adobe is chafing over the inability to run Flash on the iOS, and they no doubt feel intimidated by Apple’s competing software, primarily Final Cut Pro and Aperture. Indeed, Final Cut Pro, whose creator was once lead developer of Adobe Premiere, has become a mainstay in the movie industry. In turn, Premiere exited the Mac platform, and only returned recently.