Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen (pictured) spoke in plain English, bereft of euphemisms or corporate-speak, to the San Francisco Chronicle in remarks published Sunday, April 24.

He didn't address sticky issues such as potential personnel layoffs, product eliminations, or whether the Macromedia name has a future (it doesn't, according to remarks by Macromedia's Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch to MX Developer's Journal earlier in the week.)

But he did answer a number of other questions in a straightforward manner.

When discussing why Adobe is buying Macromedia, Chizen said, "If you look at our mission in life, which is helping people in organizations communicate better, Macromedia has done a great job in a number of areas. They complement what we do very well."

"We get to take Flash and the Flash Player with PDF Reader and deliver an industry-defining technology platform. Another great example is on the video side. We have leading-edge video authoring, editing and composition tools. They have the Flash Player, which now does video. You can imagine us optimizing our tools for their video players."

When asked why the deal is happening now, he mentioned that he wasn't interested in "a company that was still going through its turnaround from the dot-com crash. [But Macromedia has] a great deal of momentum [now]."

Chizen described his company's relationship with Apple as "like a marriage where you're in it for the kids. Except in this case, the kids are never going to grow up. " He noted that this was strictly the nature of the business relationship, that he and Steve Jobs , whom he called "brilliant," got along well.

And he noted that Microsoft, as a $40 billion software company, "will always be a potential threat for Adobe...because they want to keep growing in the software business." He also noted, "that said, we're [also] one of [Microsoft's] largest independent software vendors."