Macromedia, Inc. announced a definitive agreement under which Macromedia will acquire Elemental Software for $24 million in a stock for stock transaction. Elemental’s products Drumbeat 2000 and eStore Builder combined with Macromedia’s products like Dreamweaver and Generator, will enable Web developers to create dynamic Web sites for e-commerce, corporate intranets and personalized content. The addition of the Elemental products to Macromedia’s Web publishing product family provides a standards-based end-to-end solution of software for efficiently creating, producing and maintaining dynamic Web sites that automate the process of linking database information to Web applications with reusable code. In the transaction, Macromedia will exchange approximately 625,000 shares of its stock for all of the outstanding equity of Elemental, for a total purchase price of approximately $24 million. The transaction will be accounted for as a pooling of interests, and is expected to close within 45 days, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Macromedia expects to take a one-time charge of approximately $3.0 million for expenses related to the acquisition in the current quarter. www.macromedia.com