As Adobe inches closer to completing its acquisition of Macromedia, the company said three senior Adobe executives will leave the company by the end of the year as five Macromedia execs come on board.

Those leaving include Adobe’s senior vice president of human resources, Theresa Townsley, Digital Imaging Chief Bryan Lamkin, and Ivan Koon, senior vice president of the intelligent documents business unit.

Mr. Lamkin and Ms. Townsley are Adobe veterans, having joined the company in 1992 and 1988, respectively. Mr. Koon has been with Adobe since August 2002. Adobe said Mr. Lamkin and Ms. Townsley are leaving the company to spend more time with their families while Mr. Koon will be “pursuing opportunities outside of Adobe.”

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Adobe identified five Macromedia execs who will be part of the merged company. They are: Stephen Elop, president of worldwide field operations; Tom Hale, senior vice president of the knowledge worker solutions business unit; Kevin Lynch, senior vice president and chief software architect; David Mendels, senior vice president of the enterprise and developer solutions unit; and Al Ramadan, senior vice president for the mobile and device solutions unit.

The announcement reflects a changing power structure within Adobe as it prepares to complete the merger. “It looks like the Macromedia people are dominating the integration process,” said Samuel Saunders, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners, a securities firm based in New York City.

Adobe has said that it expects the acquisition to close this fall, once it receives the necessary approvals from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The DoJ is expected to scrutinize two product lines from Adobe and Macromedia that show a degree of overlap. They are probably Illustrator from Adobe and Fireworks from Macromedia, and GoLive from Adobe and Dreamweaver from Macromedia.

Government approval is likely to be granted by the end of the month, though initially analysts had expected the merger to close in September. The delay in the approval could mean a greater uncertainty within the company, which could lead to the departure of more executives, they said.

“Until the approval comes, Adobe and Macromedia are precluded from getting too close, which means they can’t announce any employee restructurings,” said Mr. Saunders. “A reason these employees are leaving could be because that they couldn’t get any confirmations on whether they will be there or not post the merger.”

Adobe shares slid $0.44 to $28.84 in recent trading.

Until the DoJ approval comes through, Adobe and Macromedia cannot start the process of integrating their code bases or work toward creating a combined product suite. Waiting for the DoJ’s approval could make many investors skittish, said Mr. Saunders.

“The more the approval gets pushed out, the longer it will take for combined products to come to the market and that could slow revenue growth,” he said.

Cloudy Future

Though the merger, so far, has been free of apparent acrimony, internal battles to shape the company’s future cannot be ruled out. The latest announcement could be just the first, as the company goes through a shakeup process, said Karen Haus, an analyst with WR Hambrecht & Co., a financial services firm headquartered in San Francisco.

“It seems like there are political battles that needed to be fought and the losers are leaving and the winners are staying,” said Ms. Haus.

The restructuring comes at a time when Adobe is facing increasing competition from Microsoft. Microsoft, which has largely stayed out of Adobe’s market so far, is now creeping into it with new products that overlap with Adobe’s existing products.

Specifically, Microsoft has introduced Expression Studio, which overlaps in certain areas with PhotoShop/Illustrator, Flash, and Dreamweaver.

“Microsoft’s entry creates a new competitive threat that is at best benign and at worst crippling," said SG Cowen in a research note last month.

Despite Microsoft’s looming presence, Adobe has an edge in the web development tools market, though Adobe tools like PDF and Acrobat may not be as secure, said Ms. Haus.

“If you think about it, a lot of the content in PDF is generated in Microsoft products,” she said. “It won’t be long before Microsoft decides to just put a toolbar into its product that could take out Adobe’s share.”