Adobe Systems
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| Adobe Systems |
— Adobe was founded in December 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC in order to develop and sell the PostScript page description language
A BRIEF ABOUT ADOBE
Adobe's corporate logo was designed by Marva Warnock, wife of John Warnock, who is also a graphic designer.
Adobe's first products after PostScript were digital fonts, which they released in a proprietary format called Type 1. Apple subsequently developed a competing standard, TrueType, which provided full scalability and precise control of the pixel pattern created by the font's outlines, and licensed it to Microsoft. Adobe responded by publishing the Type 1 specification and releasing Adobe Type Manager, software that allowed WYSIWYG scaling of Type 1 fonts on screen, like TrueType, although without the precise pixel-level control. But these moves were too late to stop the rise of TrueType. Although Type 1 remained the standard in the graphics/publishing market, TrueType became the standard for business and the average Windows user. In 1996, Adobe and Microsoft announced the OpenType font format, and in 2003 Adobe completed converting its Type 1 font library to OpenType.
In the mid-1980s, Adobe entered the consumer software market with Adobe Illustrator, a vector-based drawing program for the Apple Macintosh. Illustrator, which grew from the firm's in-house font-development software, helped popularize PostScript-enabled laser printers. Unlike MacDraw, then the standard Macintosh vector drawing program, Illustrator described shapes with more flexible Bézier curves, providing unprecedented accuracy. Font rendering in Illustrator, however, was left to the Macintosh's QuickDraw libraries and would not be superseded by a PostScript-like approach until Adobe released Adobe Type Manager.
In 1989, Adobe introduced what was to become its flagship product, a graphics editing program for the Macintosh called Photoshop. Stable and full-featured, Photoshop 1.0 was ably marketed by Adobe and soon dominated the market.
In 1993, Adobe introduced PDF, the Portable Document Format, and its Adobe Acrobat and Reader software. PDF is now an International Standard: ISO 32000-1:2008. The technology is adopted worldwide as a common medium for electronic documents.
Arguably, one of Adobe's few missteps on the Macintosh platform was their failure to develop their own desktop publishing (DTP) program. Instead, Aldus with PageMaker in 1985 and Quark with QuarkXPress in 1987 gained early leads in the DTP market. Adobe was also slow to address the emerging Windows DTP market. However, Adobe made great strides in that market with the release of InDesign and its bundled Creative Suite offering. In a failure to predict the direction of computing, Adobe released a complete version of Illustrator for Steve Jobs' ill-fated NeXT system, but a poorly produced version for Windows.
Despite these missteps, licensing fees from the PostScript interpreter allowed Adobe to outlast or acquire many of its rivals in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In December 1991, Adobe released Adobe Premiere, which Adobe rebranded to Adobe Premiere Pro in 2003. In 1994, Adobe acquired Aldus and added Adobe PageMaker and Adobe After Effects to its production line later in the year; it also controls the TIFF file format. In 1995, Adobe added Adobe FrameMaker, the long-document DTP application, to its production line after Adobe acquired Frame Technology Corp. In 1999, Adobe introduced Adobe InCopy as a direct competitor to QuarkCopyDesk
VISION AND MISSION
Adobe's vision
To revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information
Adobe's diversity mission
As an organization we are committed to expanding, strengthening and leveraging the diversity of our workforce. Our goal is to treat all employees with respect and integrity while valuing the differences and mirroring the diversity of the locations where we do business
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
Since 1995, Fortune has ranked Adobe as an outstanding place to work. Adobe was rated the fifth-best U.S. company to work for in 2003, sixth in 2004, 31st in 2007, 40th in 2008, and eleventh in 2009. In May 2008, Adobe Systems India was ranked 19th of great places to work in India. In October 2008, Adobe Systems Canada Inc. was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's news magazine.
PRODUCTS
Adobe products list is endless. They usually come with updates almost every year for each and every product. Some of the products are :
Desktop software:
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Soundbooth, Adobe Acrobat and Adobe AuditionServer software:
Adobe ColdFusion, Adobe Content Server and Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise SuiteFormats:
Portable Document Format (PDF), PDF's predecessor PostScript, ActionScript, Shockwave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV)Web-hosted services:
Adobe Kuler, Photoshop Express and Acrobat.comWeb design programs:
Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Contribute, Adobe Muse, Adobe Flash Builder, Adobe Flash Catalyst, Adobe Flash, and Adobe EdgeVideo editing and visual effects:
Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Prelude, and Adobe SpeedGradeMARKET CAPITALIZATION
MARKET SHARES
Adobe Systems entered NASDAQ in 1986. Adobe's 2006 revenues were US$2.575 billion.As of February 2007, Adobe's market capitalization was roughly US$23 billion; as of August 2007, its shares were trading on the NASDAQ for around $40, with a P/E ratio of about 49 and EPS of about $0.82
As of March 2008, Adobe's market capitalization was roughly $18 billion; its shares were trading on the NASDAQ for around $33, with a P/E ratio of about 27 and EPS of about $1.21
As of April 2011, Adobe's market capitalization was roughly $17 billion; its shares were trading on the NASDAQ for around $33, with a P/E ratio of about 19.73 and EPS of about $1.70
CURRENT SHARE VALUE: 31.24
Past 4 year Revenue:
HOW ADOBE WORKS??
MY OBSERVATIONS & SUGGESTIONS
Adobe has a widespread name recognition. Largely because of the product Acrobat, and specifically the Adobe reader that is installed on most PCs throughout the United States and the world. This is a piece of software that reads PDF files, which Adobe has made free for the public. This was a very smart idea on the part of Adobe.
Another positive point for Adobe is that they were one of the first companies to specialize in graphic design software.
Another advantage for Adobe is that the industry they chose to make software for is continuing to grow day-by-day. and continues to give the company the opportunity to make more software products to fit the industries growing needs.
The problem with Adobe is a lack of marketing. Adobe has products for audio recording and editing, video recording and editing, photograph editing, illustrating, and publication layout. They also have products to enhance other software out on the market including a product called Ovation which is designed to work with Microsoft PowerPoint to improve presentations. With both the design industry and the social media market growing as fast as they are, it was surprising that there’s not more information out there about these products that they have available.
Another disadvantage is that they don’t seem to be staying ahead of the market. While they do have products for the newer industry, the name Adobe is not nearly as well established within those industries.
SUGGESTIONS
The major opportunity out there for Adobe right now is that its software serves some of the fastest growing industries. With the growing trend in social networking media like MySpace, Facebook, and others, photo editing and video editing are growing hobbies among the amateur market
Graphic design is also a very fast growing industry. If Adobe can capitalize on the software that it offers for these tasks, they can really put themselves ahead of the competition, not only in its graphic design software, but in the other types of software as well
As the markets continue to change, the software has to consistently change as well. With industries that are growing this fast, it can be tough for technology companies to stay ahead of the change
Microsoft is continuing to grow and expand the types of software that it offers. Microsoft already has a photo editing software, a drawing software, and a desktop publishing software
Adobe has to come up with new way to compete as growing amateur market with lower tech, lower priced software options stand to pull some of the market from Adobe
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