Adobe pulls the plug on GoLive

With the company's purchase of Macromedia and the changing design needs of the Web, the decade-plus old WYSIWYG HTML editor took a backseat to Dreamweaver, and fell out of favor with developers.

The multimedia company acquired the rights to GoLive from German software developer GoLive Systems in 1999, where it started its life as CyberStudio, However, with its purchase of Macromedia in 2005, GoLive took a backseat.

Macromedia produced Dreamweaver, which Adobe continues to produce to this date. That WYSIWYG editor is considered more apt to produce Web pages using advanced technologies like AJAX than GoLive.

Adobe said that while GoLive served its purpose to move design to the Web, Dreamweaver is serving a similar purpose, however: helping companies move applications to the Web.

With the Web moving towards applications and the "Web 2.0," GoLive has fallen out of favor. Even though Adobe pushed out an upgrade as recently as last year, developers have still turned to Dreamweaver in increasing numbers.

Sales and development of the suite have been discontinued as of Monday. Those who had purchased GoLive are eligible for a $199 upgrade to Dreamweaver, although support will continue to be provided for customers that stick with the application.

Separately, Dreamweaver is available for $399, although current users of the software can upgrade to newer versions for the $199 price being offered to GoLive users.

The move comes, incidentally, on the same day that third-party Adobe support sites are lamenting Adobe's loss of Mark Hamburg, a developer of the original Photoshop and more recently of Lightroom, reportedly for a job with Microsoft in Seattle.