Adobe warns of shortfall, job cuts
Adobe added its name Wednesday to the list of companies warning of weaker sales and cutting jobs.
In a press release, the company said it would slash 600 jobs amid less-than-anticipated demand for its recently launched Creative Suite 4 series of products.
"The global economic crisis significantly impacted our revenue during the fourth quarter," Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said in a statement. "We have taken action to reduce our operating costs and fine-tune the focus of our resources on key strategic priorities."
The company said it now expects per-share earnings of 45 cents to 46 cents, on revenue of $912 million to $915 million for the three months ended November 28. The company had expected sales to come in as high as $955 million. The company said it expects revenue to drop further in the current quarter, with expectations now for revenue in the range of $800 million to $850 million.
The company said it will take pre-tax charges of $44 million to $50 million to account for the restructuring.
Among the things the company is apparently cutting: its booth at Macworld Expo.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.
I'm going to be the first to step up and suggest that Adobe's "management", such as it is, rethink the 18-month development cycle that is draining their customers' wallets and providing little added functionality.
Can we have a Photoshop Installer that works properly before you ask me to pony up an upgrade fee? How about fixing bugs in existing products and making it easier for customers to cross-grade their software, rather than sunsetting support for them and suggesting that people buy new copies of everything?
I'd buy CS4 if it cost a fraction of the price, though. :)
I look at CS4 on the website and think, hey, I want to buy that and I own a previous version of practically everything in the suite. So I look up the upgrade prices and wham, bam, no thank you, and no sale here.
The upgrade prices (which are high anyway) only apply if you own 1) CS3 corresponding suite or 2) one product from the CS3 suite. If you own virtually all of the products in the suite and they are not the exact previous version you get NO ADDITIONAL DISCOUNT!
So here I am with previous versions of Adobe Acrobat Pro, 2 versions of Photoshop, 5 licensed copies of Photoshop Essentials, 2 copies of Adobe Premiere Elements, 2 copies of Lightroom,an old full copy of Macromedia Director, and probably at least one copy of virtually every competive product and I still can't get any decent upgrade pricing on any CS4 suite that is not much less than what I would pay for a completely new full license.
Adobe needs to get a clue that those employees that they are sending out the door would not be there if someone in their marketing department would get a clue that they are missing out on a lot of sales with constant upgrades that offer marginal features with upgrade pricing that only applies to the immediately previous version.
And... given today's dynamics offer both Mac and Windows versions on the same CD/DVD with the same 2 computer installation limits so that small developers can actually afford to use their products on BOTH platforms.
Try installing primopdf (which is free, 11mb installer) and running off a couple pdf's or foxit reader (4mb) and see what I mean.
Makes you wonder where your money is really going considering the size of the installs and that adobe upgrades are kind of like Madden games. A little change here and there, but not enough to warrant the kind of money they want you to spend. Plus they could make their software a lot more efficient and bring those prices down.
I'm at CS2, need to upgrade to CS4........ but if it's a choice of essentials (rent, utilities, food) and yet another freakin' upgrade from Adobe (my CS2 is only a year or so old and it cost me a BUNDLE)... sorry, Adobe.... have to go with the basics I need to survive. Is it REALLY necessary to gouge us that much?
What Adobe added to CS4 is nice and worth the upgrade, but not with the bugs and performance problems. They need to do better.
Another example is Lightroom 2.0. The public beta didn't have half the bugs that the final shipping version had. I don't understand how they could do this. Lightroom 2.0 should never have shipped with the types and kinds of flaws that it has. Even the 2.1 update didn't fix things and now we are all hoping the soon to be released 2.2 will do the trick.
No the upgrade cycle is just fine. They just need to put out stable, fast and bug free software. Or at least a hell of a lot better than they are.
Robert