Adobe acquires Business Catalyst, GoodBarry

Despite no official announcement by Adobe, the Australian-American company has published a brief Q&A on its site about the acquisition. According to that information, Business Catalyst's management team, pricing, products and partner agreements will remain unchanged.

While Business Catalyst serves web professionals, the GoodBarry sub-brand serves "web-savvy DIYers". The GoodBarry brand--"simply a Business Catalyst brand set up for our retail operations," the announcement says--will be shut down as of October 1, 2009. GoodBarry and its customers will be merged under the Business Catalyst name.

Why did Adobe buy Business Catalyst? It's unclear.

BC and GoodBarry provide tools that help web designers set up online businesses for clients with minimal cost and effort (no programming skills required), combining website content management, e-commerce features, e-mail marketing, business analytics and basic CRM tools in a single package.

This article is first published as a blog post on ZDNet.