Adobe, the fast-growing maker of the Acrobat document reader and other desktop software, fell foul of Wall Street's habitual dislike of big software deals on Monday as it announced an all-stock acquisition of multimedia software developer Macromedia.

Shares in Adobe dropped by about 11 per cent after news of the deal, pushing the value of the acquisition down to about $3bn and eating into the 25 per cent premium it had initially offered on Macromedia's stock.