Adobe Systems: weaker sales, cutting jobs
Today Adobe Systems, Inc. provided preliminary financial results for its fourth quarter ended November 28, 2008. Adobe cited weaker-than-expected demand for its Creative Suite 4 family of products, in North America and Europe, as the main cause for its shortfall in fourth quarter revenues.
Adobe also announced the implementation of a restructuring program and plans to reduce its headcount by 600 full-time positions worldwide.
CNET has reported on the Adobe moves. One of the things Adobe appears to be cutting is its booth at Macworld Expo, San Francisco!
Sooooo… what is my assessment/reaction as a photographer and a Mac user?
I will speak only with regard to Photoshop – an Adobe product that I use routinely (although I could speak for Dreamweaver and Lightroom as well). I upgraded my Photoshop to the basic CS3, since it is the first version to run natively on Intel Macs. I STILL find myself routinely returning to Photoshop CS2 to use framing options in the Image Processor (File/Scripts/Image Processor) since the framing options seem to have been dropped from the basic Photoshop CS3. (I always say “seem” because things get moved sometimes – one of the joys of software engineering when it reaches endusers.)
I find the seemingly increased fragmentation of the Photoshop line annoying…. It is not as though Photoshop is an inexpensive program to begin with! (“Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.”) Perhaps other users are finding the expensive fragmentation of the Photoshop line annoying, too! 
Perhaps this results in decreased sales and fewer upgrades.
As for dropping the booth at Macworld… I do not know the cost, either in dollars or in public relations. I know that Adobe and Apple have found themselves in seemingly increased competition, and I have heard that Adobe has increased its focus on Linux and OSs besides MacOS X. What is my reaction? Linux is a wonderful form of UNIX with a need for an extensive knowledge/support structure. Linux is not the most robust form of UNIX (perhaps someday it will be). My personal reaction is that some OSs (e.g., various types of Windows) seem objectively and subjectively “clunky” to me. Perhaps this is true for other folks. In evaluating operating systems for myself, I tend to focus on security, reliability, and scalability. I have seen, in years of association in the sciences, that a number of biochemists, molecular biologists, physicists and others seem to prefer Macintosh for their desktop/laptop platform. The same preference seems to be shown by a number of visual, and other, artists. Perhaps the preference arises from different manisfestations of the same creative forces, or the ways that our brains are twisted.
Apple, as much as I love the company and its products, has a bit of “not invented here” syndrome in its culture. In all fairness, I know of no other culture that has pulled this off so successfully – with strengths in design, hardware, software, etc. At the same time, not all of Apple’s products are brilliant, because even gifted cultures have blind spots.
As a photographer, I would like to see Apple and Adobe cooperate more strongly than they compete. (“I’m more creative!” “No, I’m more creative!”) After having used a variety of desktop/laptop/server hardware platforms, I tell people that I prefer Macintosh for my desktop/laptop platform for two reasons (not necessarily in this order): 1) superior hardware, and 2) superior software. I don’t plan to change my preference, based on many years of experience with a variety of platforms (and the fact that I can READ ), and Adobe needs to understand that there are a LOT of users like me.
Let’s hope that Adobe, during its restructuring, retains a focus that serves its loyal customers who utterly RELY on its deep, rich products daily. I, for one, wish them the best of success in making the correct choices. After all, ultimately I count on their correct choices, as do thousands of other customers.
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
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