|
Adobe Systems Inc.
(408)
536-6000
345
Park Ave.
San
Jose, CA
www.adobe.com
Sales
$1.3
billion
Categories - Desktop Publishing
Software, Document Management
Software
Business Description
Founded in 1982, Adobe Systems Incorporated ("Adobe" or the "Company")
offers a line of software and services for consumers, creative professionals
and enterprises. Our products are market-leading digital imaging, design,
and document technology platforms which enable customers to create, manage
and deliver visually rich, compelling and reliable content. We distribute
our products through a network of distributors and dealers, value-added
resellers ("VARs"), systems integrators, independent software vendors
("ISVs") and original equipment manufacturers ("OEMs"); direct to end users;
and through our own Web site at www.adobe.com. We also license our
technology to major hardware manufacturers, software developers and service
providers and we offer integrated software solutions to businesses of all
sizes. We have operations in the Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa ("EMEA");
and Asia. Our software runs on Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, Linux,
UNIX and various non-personal computer platforms, depending on the product.
BUSINESS OVERVIEW
In the early 1980's, Adobe developed software that pioneered desktop
publishing. Today, we continue to be uniquely positioned to make changes not
only to how society creates visually rich information for print and the Web,
but also as to how it distributes and accesses that information
electronically.
In the simplest of terms, Adobe helps people communicate better. By
delivering powerful graphic design, publishing, and imaging software for
print, Web, and video production, we help people express, share, manage, and
collaborate on their ideas in imaginative and meaningful new ways.
Our strategy is to address the needs of a variety of customers, which
include creative professionals—graphic designers, Web designers,
videographers, photographers, and professional publishers; enterprise
users—knowledge workers, IT managers, line of business managers, and
executives; and consumers—digital imaging and digital video hobbyists and
enthusiasts. We execute against this strategy by delivering products that
support industry standards and can be deployed on multiple computing
environments, depending on the product.
PRODUCTS AND MARKETS OVERVIEW
We categorize our products into four principal business segments: Creative
Professional, Digital Imaging and Video, ePaper, and OEM Postscript and
Other. Beginning December 1, 2003, we renamed our former ePaper business
segment the Intelligent Documents business segment. However, no changes were
made to product classifications in any of the business segments.
Creative Professional
Creative Professional Market Opportunity
Since Adobe was founded in the early 1980's, a core Adobe customer has been
the creative professional. Graphic designers, production artists, Web
designers, technical writers, videographers, photographers, and prepress
professionals use and rely on Adobe's solutions for professional publishing,
Web design, business document publishing, and printing visually rich
information. Our software tools are used by creative professionals to create
much of the printed and on-line information people see and read every day,
including newspapers, magazines, Web sites, catalogs, advertisements,
brochures, product documentation, technical manuals, books, memos, reports,
and banners.
As technology continues to improve, the market dynamics for creative
professionals continue to evolve. Due to the ever changing ways in which
people wish to receive information, creative professionals look to their
software tools as a means to repurpose content across a variety of media and
applications. They wish to derive greater efficiency from the software they
use, to streamline their publishing workflows, and to effectively manage
their assets.
Adobe's brand and customer loyalty in this market continues to be strong.
Existing customers purchase upgrades and new units of our Creative
Professional products due to the high degree of innovative new features and
because of the frequent use of the products in their daily work as well as
the productivity gained by their use.
The Creative Professional market is sensitive to the economy, as most users
of Creative Professional software products derive their revenue mainly from
corporate marketing, product marketing, and ad spending in corporations. In
difficult economic times, corporations tend to reduce marketing spending. In
such environments, the businesses of creative professionals tends to suffer;
there often is a decline in spending by creative professionals on software,
a decline in growth of the number of creative professionals, and for Adobe,
a decline in revenue in its Creative Professional customer segment.
Conversely, in an environment where the economy is stable or improving,
corporations tend to increase their marketing spending. This typically
creates an improved software market serving creative professionals, and for
Adobe, additional opportunities to grow our Creative Professional segment
revenue.
As part of our corporate strategy in fiscal 2003, we increased our focus on
the Creative Professional customer with the establishment of a new Creative
Professional business unit that concentrates solely on the needs of this
customer. We executed against this strategy by delivering several new major
releases of our Creative Professional software applications during fiscal
2003. In addition to releasing new versions of Illustrator, InCopy, InDesign,
GoLive, and Photoshop (from our Digital Imaging and Video business segment)
in our fourth quarter, we delivered a brand new product platform integrating
these new products called the Adobe Creative Suite. Available in two
versions (Standard and Premium), the Adobe Creative Suite is a complete
design solution that provides efficiency through improved product
integration, a new innovative file management tool call Version Cue, and
powerful Adobe Portable Document Format ("PDF") workflow capabilities. The
Adobe Creative Suite also supports collaboration by providing Acrobat 6.0
Professional in the Premium edition. With the release of the Adobe Creative
Suite, in English in fiscal 2003 and in other languages in fiscal 2004, we
will market the complete design and publishing platform benefits and overall
value of this new product to customers.
We will continue this strategy in fiscal 2004, focusing on increasing the
number of Adobe products our customers use by delivering more value to them,
and, by enabling more efficient collaboration and workflow through improved
product integration.
If we are successful with this strategy, we believe that many of our
Creative Professional customers will migrate from licensing individual
products such as Photoshop or Illustrator to licensing them in the Creative
Suite product. This could cause a shift in revenue from our Digital Imaging
and Video business segment to our Creative Professional business segment.
Given that individual Photoshop product revenue is a significant component
of the Digital Imaging and Video segment, customers may in the future
acquire Photoshop via the Creative Suite, the revenue for which is reported
in the Creative Professional business segment, instead of by individual
Photoshop product purchase, the revenue for which is reported in the Digital
Imaging and Video segment.
We also believe that, over time, we can deliver additional revenue
generating products and integrated services as add-on offerings to the
Creative Suite.
Our Creative Professional strategy also focuses on growing our market share
with InDesign in the professional page layout software market, and with
Illustrator in the professional graphics illustration software market. In
addition, we have implemented anti-piracy measures in Photoshop CS and the
Creative Suite to guard against illegal use of the software. As we stated
earlier, we believe that this business could benefit from a broad, global
economic recovery and subsequent increase in marketing spending, if it were
to occur in 2004.
Creative Professional Products
Adobe Content Server—an easy-to-use, all-in-one system for publishers,
distributors, retailers, and individual authors to prepare, secure, and
license eBooks in Adobe PDF directly from their Web sites.
Adobe Creative Suite Premium Edition—suite of integrated software solutions
that creative professionals can use as a platform to modify and enhance
digital images, create graphics, produce professional-quality printed
publications, create and maintain dynamic Web sites, author visually rich
content for wireless devices, and share content reliably for print and
screen display. The different applications share a similar user interface
and several commands, tools, palettes and keyboard short-cuts. The suite
combines Adobe Acrobat Professional, Adobe GoLive, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe
InDesign, and Adobe Photoshop technologies, as well as a new file management
and integration technology called Version Cue.
Adobe Creative Suite Standard Edition—suite of integrated software solutions
that creative professionals can use as a platform to modify and enhance
digital images, create graphics, and produce professional-quality printed
publications. The different applications share a similar user interface and
several commands, tools, palettes and keyboard short-cuts. The suite
combines Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Photoshop
technologies, as well as a new file management and integration technology
called Version Cue.
Adobe Font Folio OpenType Edition—contains more than 2,200 typefaces from
the Adobe Type Library in OpenType format, offering a complete type solution
for print, the Web, digital video, or electronic documents.
Adobe FrameMaker—an application for authoring and publishing long,
structured, content-rich documents including books, documentation, technical
manuals, and reports; provides users a way to publish their content to
multiple output formats, including print, Adobe PDF, HTML, XML, and
Microsoft Word.
Adobe GoLive—Web design and publishing software that provides innovative
tools that Web authors require to design, layout, produce, and maintain
content for Web sites and wireless Web devices without the need for complex
multimedia programming.
Adobe Graphics Server—imaging server software used to create and maintain
digital graphics and images on frequently updated data-driven content, such
as Web sites and printed catalogs, by automating the creation and the reuse
of images; integrates with content management and e-commerce systems to
automate workflows, and eliminates the tedious manual tasks of refining and
reformatting images for specific purposes.
Adobe Illustrator—a vector-based illustration design tool used to create
compelling graphic artwork for print publications and the Web.
Adobe InCopy—an editorial tool for collaboration between writers, editors,
and copy-fitters; InCopy is a companion to Adobe InDesign.
Adobe InDesign—a page-layout application for publishing professionals; based
on an open, object-oriented architecture that is extensible, it enables
Adobe and its industry partners to deliver powerful publishing solutions for
magazine, newspaper, and other high-end publishing applications.
Adobe PageMaker—software used to create high-quality business documents
simply and reliably with robust page layout tools, templates, and stock art.
Adobe Type Basics OpenType Edition—includes Adobe's best-selling typefaces,
plus Adobe Type Manager; makes it easy to create beautiful text for print,
Web, and video projects.
Adobe Type Classics for Learning—a low-cost, introductory font library
designed for students and educators.
Adobe Type Manager—available in Light (free) and Deluxe versions; provides
powerful, easy management of all PostScript Type 1, OpenType, and TrueType
fonts.
Adobe Type Sets—various Collection packages of Adobe's best-selling
typefaces; makes it easy to create beautiful text for print, Web, and video
projects.
Digital Imaging and Video
Digital Imaging and Video Market Opportunity
With the first release of Adobe Photoshop more than ten years ago, and with
a strong market presence with our imaging and video editing tools today,
Adobe sets the standard for digital imaging software. Adobe's digital
imaging and video segment consists of powerful software products used by
creative professionals, business users, and consumers to create visually
rich content. Customers in the Digital Imaging and Video segment include
graphic designers, photographers, Web content creators, and multimedia,
film, audio, and video producers who work in industries such as advertising,
graphic design, book publishing, magazine publishing, newspaper publishing,
Web site design, intranet site development, music and entertainment,
corporate and marketing communications, product design, user interface
design, sales training, printing, architecture, and fine arts. They rely on
Adobe's digital imaging and digital video editing solutions to create and
enhance many of the pictures and video we see everyday in print, on
television, in movies, and on the Web.
Driving the market opportunities for Adobe in this segment is the growth in
the use of digital devices such as digital cameras, digital video cameras,
multi-media-enabled computers, DVD players, scanners, Web-capable and
image-enabled handheld devices, and cellular phones. As more users migrate
towards digital photography and digital video recording, the potential
market for Adobe grows. Internet broadband adoption also makes the Web a
viable platform for the delivery of rich media, especially digital video.
Creative professionals use Adobe's digital imaging and video software to
create visually rich content found in communication media such as books,
newspapers and magazines, as well as television commercials and movies.
Business users utilize digital imaging and digital video software to enhance
digital images and video when accomplishing tasks such as enhancing
corporate communications, creating presentations and sales training
materials, and developing content for internal (Intranet) and external Web
sites. Consumers use this type of software to take advantage of the
advancements made in digital photography and video technology to enhance,
manage, and share their personal photographs and videos.
As the use of digital photography and digital videography grow, we believe
creative professionals throughout the world will continue to require
software solutions to edit, enhance, and manage their digital photographs
and digital videos. We also believe hobbyists will use, with more frequency,
digital imaging and digital video software as more people purchase digital
still cameras and digital video cameras.
We have responded to these market opportunities by delivering several new
releases of our digital imaging and video software applications. In the
first quarter of fiscal 2003, we released version 1.0 of our Adobe Photoshop
Album product, which is a new easy to use, consumer-focused software product
that helps users organize and share their digital photos. In the third
quarter of fiscal 2003, we released a new integrated family of digital video
products, including a new rewritten version of Adobe Premiere Pro software
for video editing, version 6.0 of Adobe After Effects software for adding
special effects to video, Adobe Audition software for audio editing, and
Adobe Encore DVD software for DVD creation. In addition to these individual
digital video products, we released a new Adobe Video Collection that
contains these products and comes in two versions: Standard and
Professional. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2003, we released the latest
upgrade to Photoshop—Photoshop CS—which is the industry-leading product for
digital imaging. We also released version 2.0 of Adobe Photoshop Album, and
version 1.0 of Adobe Atmosphere, a new software tool which allows
professionals to create three dimensional multimedia interactive
environments.
With our digital imaging products, we plan to continue to innovate with our
Photoshop product to meet the needs of creative professional customers,
including professional photographers, graphic designers, Web designers, and
video producers. We plan to improve the integrated digital photography
workflow that centers on Photoshop, while expanding the potential customer
base by improving the interface of the product to be more accessible to
non-professional users (including amateur photographers and consumers). In
addition, we have implemented anti-piracy measures in Photoshop CS and the
Creative Suite to guard against illegal use of the software.
In the consumer digital imaging market, we offer a comprehensive digital
media software product line for consumers, including Photoshop Album for
digital photo organization, fixing, and sharing and Photoshop Elements for
amateur photographers and digital imaging hobbyists to perfect their photos.
We also plan to continue partnering with vendors in the digital imaging and
video market to deliver integrated photo services, and we have made
Photoshop Album Starter Edition available for free to millions of users via
inclusion with Adobe Reader to provide a compelling initial digital imaging
experience. Finally, we continue to work on integration of Adobe PDF
technology as a means for users to collaborate electronically and share
their digital images.
With our new set of digital video products, we strive to provide the
strongest, market-leading digital video authoring platform for our
customers. To grow our digital video business, we are marketing the benefits
of our digital video platform to creative professionals and videographers in
the film, broadcast, corporate, and event videography market segments, and
we are working with partners to deliver integrated video systems on the
Microsoft Windows platform which utilize our software.
Digital Imaging and Video Products
Adobe After Effects—software used to create sophisticated animation, motion
compositing, and special effects found in multimedia, television broadcast,
film, and the Web; available in two versions:
After Effects Standard provides basic 2D and 3D compositing, animation, and
visual effects tools; After Effects Professional adds advanced features such
as motion tracking and stabilization, advanced keying and warping tools,
more than 30 additional visual effects, and additional audio effects.
Adobe Atmosphere—a software tool for authoring graphically rich three
dimensional worlds that viewers on the Web can figuratively enter and
interact in; provides a platform for creating realistic and immersive
environments that offer a revolutionary approach to content, Web navigation,
community, and communication.
Adobe Audition—a professional audio editing environment designed for
demanding audio and video professionals; provides advanced audio mixing,
editing, and effects processing capabilities.
Adobe Encore DVD—professional DVD authoring and creation software; provides
a comprehensive set of design tools and integration with other Adobe
software to create a streamlined DVD creation workflow; provides ability to
output projects to all recordable DVD formats, ensuring a wide degree of
playback compatibility.
Adobe Photoshop—provides photo design enhancement and editing capabilities
for print, the Internet, and multi-media; used by graphic designers,
professional photographers, Web designers, professional publishers, and
video professionals, as well as amateur photographers and digital imaging
hobbyists.
Adobe Photoshop Album—offers unique, easy-to-use interface to find,
organize, share, and edit digital photographs; designed for consumers to
manage their collections of digital photographs, easily share photos via
e-mail and the Web, create digital slide shows and photo albums, and get
their photographs printed via on-line photo finishing services; works well
with Photoshop Elements when more advanced digital photograph editing and
touch-up is needed.
Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition—a limited-feature version of Photoshop
Album available for free; lets consumers find photos fast, fix common flaws,
and easily share images with others.
Adobe Photoshop Elements—offers unique, easy-to-use, powerful image-editing
tools designed specifically for amateur photographers and hobbyists who want
to create professional-quality images for print and the Web.
Adobe Premiere Pro—new professional digital video-editing software used to
create broadcast-quality movies for video, film, DVD, multimedia, and
streaming over the Web.
Adobe SVG Viewer—a plug-in for Web browsers that allows users to view Web
graphics created in Scalable Vector Graphics ("SVG") format.
Adobe Video Collection Professional Edition—suite of five integrated
application products that allows users to produce professional-quality
video, film and multimedia; includes Adobe After Effects Professional
Edition, Adobe Audition, Adobe Encore DVD, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe
Premiere Pro.
Adobe Video Collection Standard Edition—suite of four integrated application
products that allows users to produce professional-quality video, film,
multimedia; includes Adobe After Effects Standard Edition, Adobe Audition,
Adobe Encore DVD and Adobe Premiere Pro.
Intelligent Documents
Intelligent Documents Market Opportunity
Enterprises are under increasing pressure to save money, offer improved
customer service, adhere to regulatory requirements, and leverage existing
investments in core systems. We believe that significant market
opportunities exist to help enterprises address these issues by making their
business processes more efficient.
Printed documents are an essential part of most enterprise business
processes because they are a familiar method for communicating,
collaborating, and conducting transactions with customers, partners, and
employees. While over time, enterprises may replace documents with Web
applications and similar technologies, we believe that many of these
documents will continue to persist, and organizations will need to integrate
electronic versions of printed documents with their business processes.
A critical component of an organization's business processes is the need to
interact with data stored in enterprise applications. As this need expands
beyond the core users of those applications, adapting systems to accommodate
a diverse group of users has become an expensive and time-consuming
endeavor. The outcome is a proliferation of manual workarounds that result
in process inefficiencies, delays, and poor quality of information.
We believe that Adobe can address these issues and realize significant
market opportunities with our Adobe Intelligent Documents business, which
provides organizations with a secure and flexible way to extend the power
and reach of enterprise applications inside and outside their computer
network firewall. Intelligent Documents uses a set of document services to
create intelligent electronic documents, and integrate them into existing
business processes.
With intelligent documents, customers can create documents from the desktop
or from enterprise applications, and collaborate with internal and external
people while maintaining the visual fidelity and integrity of the original
source documents. It also enables them to capture data more securely through
electronic forms, even when working offline; and automate and manage
processes that are not managed by core systems.
Our strategy to address these market opportunities consists of delivering an
Intelligent Document platform that contains three architecture components:
• Intelligent documents
• Universal client
• Document services
Intelligent documents interact with core business applications and integrate
information contained in those documents into business processes. Because
they are exact electronic replicas, intelligent documents retain the best
characteristics of paper documents, such as a familiar look. To this, Adobe
has added powerful XML-based business logic capabilities, such as data
validations and automated routing instructions. These features allow for
more efficient interaction with enterprise applications while still
providing the ability for people to manually access and interact with the
data when necessary.
A universal client is a commonly available interface or access point between
people and intelligent documents. Adobe Reader software and Web browsers are
examples of universal clients. With more than 500 million distributed copies
of Adobe Reader, Adobe has created a ubiquitous platform for accessing and
interacting with intelligent documents. Adobe Reader is available on the
most common operating system platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Apple
Macintosh, Linux, various Unix-based platforms, and portable device systems
such as Palm OS, Pocket PC, and the Symbian operating system for cellular
phones. As a universal client, Adobe Reader enables users inside and outside
the firewall to interact with intelligent PDF documents on most platforms,
including desktops, laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, and kiosks, regardless of
the application used to author the document.
Finally, document services are underlying technologies that create,
integrate, and manage intelligent documents—leveraging the use of a
universal client for constituents to interact with data within the document.
Document services include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Document Generation—products and solutions to dynamically generate
personalized, customer-facing documents from enterprise applications for
enhanced customer communications.
• Document Process Management—products and solutions to deploy intelligent
data capture systems and rules-based process management to automate business
transactions.
• Document Collaboration—products and solutions to streamline collaborative
processes among users, with a goal to accelerate review cycles and reduce
costs.
• Document Control and Security—products and solutions to control document
access and usage, and enable the use of digital signatures as a replacement
for paper and pen-based signatures.
The market opportunity for each of these document services, and Adobe's
strategy to realize these opportunities is described below in more detail.
Document Generation
There is a significant document generation market opportunity for
transforming raw business data from enterprise applications into visually
rich, dynamic, customer-focused documents for delivery on most platforms. In
many cases, documents are the main source of interaction governments and
businesses have with their constituents, partners, and customers. Documents
are used to generate revenue (such as catalogs, brochures, mailers), conduct
transactions (such as tax forms, invoices, loan documents and account
statements), and transfer knowledge (such as user manuals, product
specifications and financial reports). We believe the key to producing
documents that drive business is an enterprise class document generation
solution that takes content from multiple sources, dynamically generates
documents, and securely and reliably delivers those documents over a variety
of systems and devices.
Adobe's solutions for document generation are intended to: improve customer
satisfaction by enabling customized and personal dynamic document generation
for multiple devices and platforms; ensuring that documents appear exactly
as intended and are protected from unauthorized changes; and reducing costs
by automating document and image production processes. We provide both
desktop and server-based solutions for the document generation market.
On the desktop, the Adobe Acrobat product family creates PDF documents from
everyday office applications, such as Microsoft Office. In fiscal 2003, we
expanded the Acrobat product line from one product into three distinct
products to meet the needs of the different types of customers that require
Acrobat functionality:
• Acrobat Elements—a product launched with the release of version 6.0 of the
Acrobat family of products in our second quarter of fiscal 2003, is a
low-cost version of Acrobat that contains Adobe PDF creation features
targeted for enterprise knowledge workers. It provides easy, one-button
Adobe PDF creation from Microsoft Office applications such as Excel, Word,
and Outlook, allowing knowledge workers to reliably share electronic
documents within and outside the walls of their organization.
• Acrobat Standard—also a product that was released in the second quarter of
fiscal 2003, targets business professionals with its Adobe PDF creation,
collaboration, and digital signature features. Workgroups and entire
enterprises can utilize Acrobat Standard to implement electronic document
workflow solutions that improve business processes.
Acrobat Professional—the third product launched in our second quarter of
fiscal 2003, contains expert features targeted for customers such as
Creative Professionals, print service personnel, engineers, architects, and
other similar users. They use Acrobat Professional for advanced capabilities
such as complex electronic document creation from multiple source formats,
pre-flighting of documents that are to be professionally printed, color
separation preview and output, electronic form creation, and one-button PDF
creation from software applications such as AutoCAD, Visio, and Microsoft
Project. Acrobat Professional also contains all of the features found in
Acrobat Standard.
On servers, Adobe offers a combination of products to generate documents,
including Adobe Central Pro Output Server and Adobe Document Server. Our
server products merge output, including XML-based data, from enterprise
applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP), content management, and legacy systems with highly
formatted document templates to generate personalized, reliable documents
for print or electronic delivery.
Based on customer need, we also released Acrobat Elements Server in fiscal
2003. Acrobat Elements Server provides a means for customers to broadly
deploy PDF creation for multiple users, and is an alternative to low-cost
Acrobat and PDF generation clone software that exists in the market.
We believe our key advantages in the document generation market include the
standardization of PDF in many government agencies and regulated industries
as a format for distributing, viewing, printing, and archiving electronic
documents. In addition, Adobe Reader is available on most platforms,
assuring our customers who generate PDF files that their content will be
viewable and printable when distributed. Finally, our solutions employ
advanced and comprehensive security technology to help protect a document's
authenticity, integrity, and confidentiality.
Adobe desktop products that provide document generation capabilities
include:
• Adobe Acrobat Professional
• Adobe Acrobat Standard
Document Process Management
Enterprises have invested significantly in their infrastructure over the
last ten years, resulting in the deployment of complex business systems such
as CRM, ERP, and Document Content Management (DCM). Yet many of these
back-end systems are not fully connected with each other, or with the
software productivity tools used by business users on their desktops. To
meet these challenges, Adobe offers document process management solutions
that leverage the intelligence and flexibility of intelligent documents.
A key component of our document process management strategy is the
utilization of electronic forms as a replacement for paper-based forms.
Information entered into and contained in paper-based forms typically must
be manually retyped and entered into enterprise applications, which is
inefficient, error-prone, and labor-intensive. With Adobe's solutions for
document process management, the enterprise's customers, employees, and
partners can instead submit information through secure electronic forms. By
embedding business logic (such as calculations and data validation) into
these forms, our solutions can also improve the accuracy of data that is
automatically integrated into core business systems such as CRM, ERP, and
DCM enterprise applications.
In addition, information captured in an electronic form can trigger rules-
and roles-based workflow. For example, an employee can enter data on-line
into an expense report that is later submitted electronically for approval;
the data can then be automatically sent to a manager for review, or
integrated into the organization's accounting system. Additional process
tracking and reporting capabilities offer business managers insight into the
status of their workflows, and allow them ways to further streamline their
processes for better business performance.
Adobe's document process management solutions involve several products,
including the Adobe Acrobat product line, Adobe Reader, Adobe Form Client,
Adobe Form Designer and Adobe Reader Extensions Server.
Adobe also provides Adobe Form Server, which offers the broadest range of
solutions for deploying intelligent forms that can be completed online or
offline, across diverse platforms and devices, and, Adobe Workflow Server,
which enables enterprises to easily design, deploy, and manage forms-based
business processes.
Document Collaboration
The desire by governments and enterprises to have more effective and timely
collaboration solutions has created a significant market opportunity.
Collaboration can be a difficult task for an enterprise to accomplish
because documents must flow within and between organizations, yet all
participants in review cycles may not have the same applications or system
configurations to support proprietary or specialized document formats.
Adobe's solutions for document collaboration enable more secure and reliable
distribution of documents to streamline document exchange, review,
commenting, and approval on most platforms, while protecting content from
unauthorized access and alterations. Adobe PDF documents can also be
automatically routed, tracked, and integrated into core applications such as
DCM to manage the full collaboration process.
Benefits to customers using Adobe solutions for document collaboration
include the protection of business information and process integrity, the
reduction of costs by automating collaborative processes and reducing paper,
and the simplification of document sharing between employees, customers,
partners, and other constituents. Governments can shorten the time it takes
to approve applications. Enterprise customers can replace paper mailings to
customers and suppliers with electronic document distribution, accelerate
product and engineering documentation reviews, and streamline contract
review and preparation.
In addition to Adobe's desktop solution for document collaboration, Adobe
also provides a server-based solution based on Adobe Reader Extensions
Server. Reader Extensions Server lets enterprises easily share interactive,
intelligent PDF documents with external parties. It unlocks features in the
free Adobe Reader so that end users can use digital signatures to sign
electronic documents, add comments by using electronic sticky notes and
other mark-up tools, save the document and fill-in form information. Without
these enabled capabilities, users would have to license software to interact
with the documents electronically, or, print and manually edit or sign the
documents.
Adobe products for document collaboration include the Adobe Acrobat product
line, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Reader Extensions Server.
Document Control and Security
By replacing manual paper-based documents processes with electronic document
equivalents, enterprises can enhance their quality of service, improve their
company's productivity and lower costs. Already today, businesses and
consumers frequently interact electronically. For example, consumers place
electronic Web-based orders, businesses file government reports on-line, and
banks distribute customer account statements via e-mail or the Web. Yet,
this migration to electronic document delivery of sensitive or confidential
information creates inherent risks such as unauthorized access to the
information and identity theft.
We believe the movement to the use of electronic documents by enterprises
and consumers has created an emerging document control and security market
opportunity for Adobe. To address this market need, Adobe has implemented
within its desktop and server products advanced technologies to help ensure
the authenticity of an electronic document's origin, the integrity of its
content, and the confidentiality of the communication.
Adobe products for document control and security include the Adobe Acrobat
product line, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Reader Extensions Server.
Intelligent Documents Products
Desktop Document Generation
Adobe Acrobat Capture—enables conversion of legacy paper-based documents
into indexed, searchable, platform-independent electronic PDF files for
archiving and distribution purposes.
Adobe Acrobat Elements—software that enables enterprises to extend the value
of their Microsoft Office investment by standardizing on Adobe PDF for
reliable document distribution; provides for the easy conversion of
Microsoft Office documents to Adobe PDF, preserving document integrity for
reliable viewing and printing on other operating systems and hardware
platforms inside and outside the enterprise's IT firewall.
Adobe Acrobat Messenger—software that works with a scanner or digital copier
and is designed for workgroups and departments to transform paper documents
into electronic Adobe PDF files and deliver them via e-mail, Web, or fax;
allows users to preview their documents on-screen, crop or rotate pages, and
add electronic annotations.
Adobe Acrobat Standard—creates secure, reliable, and compact Adobe PDF files
from desktop authoring applications such as Microsoft Office software,
graphics applications, and more. Supports automated collaborative workflows
with a rich set of commenting tools and review tracking features; includes
everything needed to create and distribute rich electronic documents that
can be viewed easily within leading Web browsers or on computer desktops via
the free Adobe Reader.
Adobe Acrobat Professional—in addition to all the capabilities of Acrobat
Standard, Acrobat Professional delivers specialized capabilities for
creative professional and engineering users, such as pre-flighting, color
separation, and measuring tools.
Server-based Document Generation
Adobe Acrobat Distiller Server—server-based software that provides
workgroups with a centralized solution for converting PostScript files to
Adobe PDF files over a network; gives IT and creative professionals the
power of increased productivity and the assurance of consistent,
high-quality output.
Adobe Acrobat Elements Server—server-based software that enables
organizations to centrally deploy and manage Adobe PDF creation capabilities
across the enterprise. Flexible, server-based deployment options, combined
with a Web services Application Programming Interface ("API"), make it easy
to integrate Adobe PDF generation into document-based business processes and
existing enterprise applications.
Adobe Central Pro Output Server—server-based software for document
generation that allows organizations to create personalized, customer-facing
documents from any data source—including legacy, line-of-business, ERP, or
CRM applications; merges data with an electronic document template using a
powerful processing engine to dynamically generate electronic documents such
as purchase orders, invoices, statements, and checks for delivery via Adobe
PDF, the Web, e-mail, fax, or print; works with Adobe Output Designer, which
is a companion tool used to create sophisticated document templates.
Adobe Document Server—server-based software for the creation, manipulation
and assembly of customized Adobe PDF documents; XML-based data can be
inserted into templates to create complex, content-rich documents for more
targeted and effective customer communications; integrates with leading
enterprise applications as well as custom systems.
Adobe Output Designer—a design tool that allows users to create electronic
document templates for use with Adobe solutions for document generation;
aids in the creation of electronic documents that exactly replicate existing
paper documents.
Adobe Output Pak for mySAP.com—SAP-certified server-based software for
document generation that enables organizations to optimize their investment
in their SAP solution by creating personalized, professional-looking,
customer-facing documents; provides an easy, fast, and cost-effective way to
create and maintain documents for the SAP environment; integrates directly
with an SAP system to extract information which is merged with a document
template that defines the layout and formatting of the document; output can
be in a variety of formats, including Adobe PDF, print, fax, e-mail, and the
Web, to multiple devices.
Adobe Output Pak for Oracle—server-based software for document generation;
expands the scope of the Oracle E-Business Suite by allowing customers to
easily create, maintain, and integrate high-quality, professional-looking
electronic documents with their Oracle business processes in an easy, fast,
and cost-effective way; integrates directly with Oracle Reports to extract
XML data from other applications which is then merged with a document
template that defines the layout and formatting of the document output; used
to dynamically generate documents such as purchase orders, invoices,
statements, and checks which can then be delivered via Adobe PDF, print,
fax, e-mail, and the Web.
Adobe Web Output Pak—server-based software for document generation; creates
documents in PDF and HTML for presentation on the Web, and in Wireless
Markup Language ("WML") for presentation to a wireless device; allows users
to personalize and control the look of documents based on the data the
documents contain.
Document Process Management
Adobe solutions for document process management include the following
products as well as Adobe Reader Extensions Server and Adobe Reader, which
are listed under Document Collaboration.
Adobe Form Designer—simplifies the creation of intelligent XML form
templates for deployment as Adobe PDF forms or HTML applications. It
provides an intuitive, graphical design tool for creating XML templates that
look exactly as the author intended. It also simplifies adding intelligence
to documents, such as calculations and validations, and binding form fields
to arbitrary XML schemes for seamless integration with enterprise
applications.
Adobe Form Server—offers the broadest range of solutions for deploying
intelligent forms that can be completed online or offline, across diverse
platforms and devices. It identifies a user's environment to deliver the
richest form-filling capabilities supported, and integrates with enterprise
applications to pre-populate form fields, save captured data, and initiate
data-driven workflows.
Adobe Form Client—creates a rich form-filling experience, when the users'
environment is known, to increase accuracy of data captured and reduce
process inefficiencies. It offers flexible desktop, form-deployment options
with zero administration, an XML-based architecture for integration with
core business applications, and support for digital signatures.
Adobe Workflow Server—a server-based workflow application that allows for
the design, deployment and management of forms-based business processes to
improve organizational agility and productivity; uses a rules-and
roles-based design tool that defines business rules a process must follow,
as well as the roles of each individual involved in the process.
Adobe Capture Handheld—Adobe Capture Handheld enables mobile workers to
submit data captured through intelligent electronic forms directly into core
business applications, increasing organizational productivity and agility.
It provides the broadest range of features available for capturing data on
products for Microsoft Windows Powered Pocket PC and Handheld PC devices,
including built-in calculation and validation capabilities, the ability to
fill in forms online or offline, and support for industry-standard digital
signature technologies.
Document Collaboration
Adobe's document collaboration products include Adobe Reader Extensions
Server (below), as well as the Adobe Acrobat product family (product
descriptions for which are listed under Desktop Document Generation).
Adobe Reader—free software for reliably reviewing and printing Adobe PDF
files on a variety of hardware and operating system platforms.
Adobe Reader Extensions Server—server-based product lets enterprises easily
create and share interactive PDF files with external parties who must
interact with these documents—without requiring recipients of the documents
to acquire Acrobat software that normally would be necessary to interact
with the PDF files they receive. On an individual PDF document, it unlocks
features so that when such a file is opened in the free Adobe Reader, users
have access to functionality that normally would not be available in Adobe
Reader. Examples of document collaboration features that can be enabled in
Adobe Reader by this server product include the use of digital signatures to
electronically sign PDF documents, the ability to provide comments by using
electronic sticky notes and other collaborative mark-up tools, the
capability to save the document and the ability to fill-in form information.
Document Control and Security
Adobe Acrobat Professional and Adobe Acrobat Standard—(in addition to
features described previously) provide extensive document controls that let
organizations determine who can open, print, copy, or modify content within
a PDF document. Also offers support for digital signature technologies from
leading security vendors such as Entrust, GeoTrust, IBM, RSA Security, and
Verisign.
OEM PostScript and Other
OEM PostScript and Other Market Opportunity
Graphics professionals and professional publishers require quality,
reliability, and efficiency in production printing, and we believe our
printing technology provides advanced functionality to meet the
sophisticated requirements of this marketplace. As high-end printing systems
evolve and transition to fully digital, composite workflows, Adobe is
uniquely positioned to be a supplier of software and technology based on the
Adobe PostScript and Adobe PDF standards for use by hardware manufacturers
in this industry. Adobe generates revenues by licensing our technology to
OEMs that manufacture printers and other output devices.
OEM PostScript and Other Products
Adobe PostScript—a printing and imaging page description language that
delivers high quality output, cross-platform compatibility, and top
performance for graphically-rich printing output from corporate desktop
printers to high-end publishing printers; gives users the power to create
and print visually rich documents with total precision; licensed to printing
equipment manufacturers for integration into their printing products.
Adobe Extreme—a printing architecture for service bureaus, prepress shops,
and commercial printers; the fastest, most flexible implementation of Adobe
printing technology; provides an integrated workflow that automates prepress
tasks, optimizing output speeds and quality by using Adobe PDF and job
tickets; offers flexibility while delivering a scalable, reliable, and
productive printing environment.
Adobe PDF Transit—a Software Development Kit that enables print providers to
develop streamlined, reliable, and secure Adobe PDF-based workflows that
begins at their customers' desktops and extends across the Internet to a
printing device.
COMPETITION
The markets for Adobe products are characterized by intense competition,
evolving industry standards, rapid technology and hardware developments, and
frequent new product introductions. Our future success will depend on our
ability to enhance our existing products, introduce new products on a timely
and cost-effective basis, meet changing customer needs, extend our core
technology into new applications, and anticipate or respond to emerging
standards and other technological changes.
Creative Professional
In our Creative Professional segment, we offer several individual software
applications, including Adobe GoLive, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign,
Adobe InCopy, Adobe PageMaker, and Adobe FrameMaker. We believe these
individual products compete favorably on the basis of features and
functionality, ease of use, product reliability, and price and performance
characteristics. In addition, the products work well together, providing
broader functionality and shortened product learning time for the individual
who uses multiple applications to complete a project.
We also offer the Adobe Creative Suite in two versions, which are new
products that consist of combinations of several of our technologies. The
Adobe Creative Suite Standard Edition combines the capabilities of InDesign,
Illustrator, and Photoshop, as well as new file management and integration
technology called Version Cue. The Adobe Creative Suite Premium Edition adds
to this the capabilities of Acrobat Professional and GoLive. The Adobe
Creative Suite is a complete design and publishing solution for print and
Web publishing. We believe that no other software vendor currently provides
a similar solution.
Drawing and illustration products are characterized by feature-rich
competition, brand awareness, and price sensitivity. Our Adobe Illustrator
product faces competition from companies such as Corel, Deneba, and
Macromedia. We believe our product competes favorably due to high awareness
of the features in our Illustrator product, especially the drawing and
illustration functionalities, the features and technical capabilities of the
product, and our ability to leverage core technologies from our other
established products.
Our Adobe InDesign product, used for professional page layout, faces tough
competition. The main competitive product, Quark XPress, has a leadership
position in the professional page layout market. Quark also benefits from an
established industry infrastructure that has been built around the use of
their XPress product in print shops and service bureaus, and through the
development of third party plug-in products. Barriers to the adoption of
Adobe InDesign by Quark XPress customers include this infrastructure, as
well as the cost of conversion, training, and software/hardware procurement
required to switch to InDesign. We have seen an increase in the adoption of
InDesign software, and we believe we will continue to see market share gains
going forward due to a product offering that contains new innovative
features (such as separations preview, nested styles, transparency,
typography and enhanced XML support), our strong brand among users, positive
reviews by industry experts, adoption of InDesign by major accounts which
are influencers in their industries, and improved infrastructure support by
the industry for our overall solution.
The demand for Web page layout is constantly evolving and highly volatile.
We believe Adobe GoLive trails in market share and faces significant direct
and indirect competition for Web page layout applications from companies
such as Macromedia and Microsoft. We believe our product compares favorably
to these applications; however, our market share may be constrained by
Macromedia's entrenched position in the Web page layout market, and by
Microsoft's ability to target its Web page layout software to users in
markets they dominate, including users of Microsoft Office, Microsoft
Windows operating system, and the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser.
In the technical authoring and publishing market, our Adobe FrameMaker
product faces competition from large-scale electronic publishing systems,
XML-based publishing companies such as Arbortext, as well as lower-end
desktop publishing products such as Microsoft Word. Competition is based on
the quality and features of products, the level of customization and
integration with other publishing system components, the number of hardware
platforms supported, service, and price. We believe we can successfully
compete based upon the quality and features of the Adobe FrameMaker product,
our extensive application programming interface, and the number of platforms
supported.
In the business document publishing and authoring market, our Adobe
PageMaker product faces competition from other desktop publishing software
products, including Microsoft Publisher. Competition is based on the quality
and features of products, ease-of-use, printer service support, and price.
We believe we have a strong product and can successfully compete with these
types of applications based upon the quality and features of the Adobe
PageMaker product, its strong brand among users, and its widespread adoption
among printer service bureaus.
Digital Imaging and Video
The Digital Imaging and Video software markets are constantly evolving,
characterized by rapid technological and hardware developments, and frequent
new product introductions. The needs of the users in these
markets—especially at the low-end consumer level—are rapidly changing as
more people become avid users of digital cameras, digital video cameras, and
digital imaging and digital video equipped hardware devices, personal
computers and cellular phones.
Our tools in the market, including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Album,
Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Adobe Encore
DVD, and Adobe Premiere Pro software, face significant competition from
companies offering similar products and will continue to face competition
from emerging products and technologies.
The mid-range consumer digital imaging and image management software markets
are subject to intense competition, price sensitivity, brand awareness and
strength in OEM bundling and retail distribution.
We face direct and indirect competition in these markets from a number of
companies that market software which competes with ours, including ACD
Systems, AI Soft (Japan), Apple Computer, ArcSoft, Corel, i4 (Japan), Image
Software, JASC Software, Kelly Media (Germany), Luna Imaging, Macromedia,
Micrografx, Microsoft, Paessler GmbH (Germany), Pegasus Imaging Company,
Roxio, TriVista Technologies, Ulead Systems, and VCOM Products. In addition,
we face competition from device, hardware, and camera manufacturers such as
Apple Computer, Canon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Nikon, Sony, and others as
they try to differentiate their offerings by bundling their own digital
imaging software, or those of our competitors. Similarly, we face potential
competition from operating system manufacturers such as Apple Computer and
Microsoft if they integrate hobbyist-level digital imaging and image
management features in future versions of their operating systems.
We believe we compete favorably against other mid-range digital imaging and
consumer-focused image management software applications with our Adobe
Photoshop Elements and Adobe Photoshop Album products due to strong consumer
awareness of our brand in digital imaging, our relationships with
significant OEMs, positive recommendations for our products by market
influencers, our increased focus on the retail software channel, and a
strong feature set.
The professional digital imaging software market is a competitive market
where software applications compete based on product features, brand
awareness, and price sensitivity. We face direct and indirect competition
from a number of companies including Corel, Jasc Software, and Macromedia.
We are an industry leader and compete favorably with our Adobe Photoshop
product due to high awareness of the Photoshop brand in digital imaging, the
positive recommendations for our Photoshop product by market influencers,
the features and technical capabilities of the product, and our ability to
leverage core features from our other established products.
Applications for digital video editing, compositing and special effects,
audio creation, and DVD authoring face increasing competition as video
professionals and hobbyists migrate away from analog video and audio tools
towards the use of digital camcorders and digital video production on their
computers and DVD systems for rich media playback. Our Adobe After Effects,
Adobe Audition, Adobe Encore DVD, and Adobe Premiere Pro software products,
as well as the Adobe Video Collection which contains these products, face
competition from companies such as Aist, Apple Computer, ArcSoft, Avid,
Broderbund, Canopus, Cyberlink, Discreet, Magix, Microsoft, Muvee, Pinnacle
Systems, Roxio, Sonic Solutions, ULead Systems, and Sony.
Adobe After Effects software is a leader in professional compositing and
special effects editing applications due to our strong feature set and the
integration with our other products to create a broad platform for our
customers. In professional digital video editing, we are a market leader on
the Microsoft Windows platform with Adobe Premiere Pro, and compete
favorably due to our strong feature set, our OEM relationships, and the
integration with our other products to create a broad digital video
publishing platform for our customers.
Intelligent Documents
As we broaden the scope of our Intelligent Documents products and solutions,
we face increased competition from entrenched office applications, makers of
products which provide clone capabilities of our Acrobat product, electronic
forms solution providers, emerging products/technologies, and potentially,
enterprise collaboration system providers. Additionally, current office
applications and content creation/management tools that use HTML, Macromedia
Flash, Macromedia FlashPaper, Microsoft InfoPath, Microsoft Word, Tagged
Information File Format ("TIFF"), and various XML-based formats for
electronic document distribution provide alternate solutions to customers,
and indirectly compete with Adobe's Intelligent Documents products and the
use of Adobe PDF.
For document generation solutions—specifically, the desktop and server-based
PDF file creation markets—Adobe Acrobat and our server solutions such as
Adobe Acrobat Elements Server, Adobe Distiller Server, and Adobe Document
Server face competition from many Acrobat clone products marketed by
companies such as Ansyr Technology, eHelp Corporation, Global Graphics,
Software995, and others. In addition, other PDF creation solutions can be
found at a low cost, or for free, on the Web. Additional competitors in the
server-based document generation market include DocuCorp, Document Sciences,
Formscape, Optio, and StreamServe. However, some PDF creation solution
providers in the market today use technology from us, licensed as Adobe PDF
Libraries, to implement the PDF creation capabilities of their products or
solutions.
In the higher end of the market, the release of our new Acrobat product
called Acrobat Professional allows us to provide similar value as, and
compete more directly against, other creative professional PDF tool
providers, such as Enfocus, Dalim, TeamPDF, and Zinio.
For document collaboration and document process management solutions, where
electronic document delivery, exchange, collaboration, and archival needs
exist, our Intelligent Documents product family faces competition from
entrenched office applications such as Microsoft Office. In addition, some
content management vendors provide collaboration and business process
management capabilities that could directly or indirectly compete with our
offerings, although we view our solutions in these areas as an extension of
those supplied by such vendors.
Microsoft has also brought to market new products and technologies to
address emerging Intelligent Documents market needs. In the Professional
version of Microsoft Office 2003, they have introduced a new information
gathering program called InfoPath 2003. They have also introduced Windows
Rights Management Services in their new Windows Server 2003 product, which
is designed to allow corporate networks to manage and enforce restrictions
built into documents. Microsoft has also introduced enhanced collaborative
document review, document security, and document distribution capabilities
in its versions of Microsoft Office 2003.
These new and updated Microsoft products and technologies, and their
marketing initiatives supporting them, indicate Microsoft is targeting the
electronic document distribution, collaboration, and forms markets, markets
that we are also focused on.
In addition to Microsoft, and due to the large size of the document
collaboration and document process management opportunities, we have seen
and expect to see new products and technologies from established technology
companies that may compete directly or indirectly with our Intelligent
Document products and solutions. For example, Macromedia has introduced a
new server product called Flex, which is a development environment for
creating Internet applications to dynamically display data; and Oracle and
Corel have announced a partnership to deliver a solution to enable the
creation, storage and delivery of XML content and SVG applications.
We also continue to face competition with our Intelligent Documents from
established eForm solution companies such as Cardiff, PureEdge, and FileNET
(through their acquisition of Shana) for electronic forms solutions.
Similarly, we face competition for document process management solutions
from workflow solutions vendors such as MetaStorm, Scansoft, Staffware, and
Ultimus.
We believe that our Intelligent Documents product family competes favorably
against these companies and formats in terms of the combined benefits of
superior functionality, cross-platform visual page fidelity/reliability,
multi-platform capability, file compression, printing and security of
documents expressed using Adobe PDF. We also believe that Adobe PDF and its
integration with XML, combined with the broad distribution of Adobe Reader
on all leading hardware platforms, provide a ubiquitous universal
multi-platform solution that is more compelling than our competitors'
offerings.
Looking to the future, electronic document systems targeting enterprises
will continue to be developed and will likely be adopted. In addition,
Microsoft is working on the next generation of its Windows operating system,
codenamed Longhorn, which could be released as early as late 2005. It is
anticipated that Microsoft will add new electronic document capabilities to
Longhorn, potentially providing additional competition to our Intelligent
Document products and solutions. We are working to ensure our Adobe
Intelligent Documents applications stay at the forefront of innovation in
emerging markets such as document generation, document collaboration and
document process management, and thus are positioned to be leading products
in these markets.
OEM PostScript and Other
We believe that the principal competitive factors for OEMs in selecting a
page description language or a printing technology are product capabilities,
market leadership, reliability, price, support, and engineering development
assistance. We believe that our competitive advantages include our
technology competency, OEM customer relationships, and intellectual property
portfolio. Adobe PostScript faces competition from Hewlett-Packard's
proprietary PCL page description language, and from developers of other page
description languages based on the PostScript language standard, including
Global Graphics and Xionics.
Ticker
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