Adobe Systems' chief executive is taking his company more deeply into the slow-growth enterprise software market. His company's products continue to command top dollar while other desktop software prices plummet. In fact, the company last June reported its most profitable quarter ever. And he's -- so far -- managed to stay friends with Microsoft while simultaneously trouncing the world's largest software maker in the electronic-document market.
There are some clouds on the horizon, of course. Microsoft will -- someday -- get it right. And competitors to some of Adobe's most popular products are appearing from the open-source community, with more sure to come.
But Chizen, who took over as CEO from company founder John Warnock back in 2000, has a plan. He spoke with CNET News.com about industry consolidation and Linux on the desktop.
Q: Many people have come to expect software to be free or very inexpensive. How have you avoided that trend, and do you think that will last?
A: I get a lot of questions about what open source means to Adobe, and the reality is there have been a number of products out in the open-source marketplace that have competed with products like Photoshop, Illustrator and PostScript, and others. Yet customers are willing to pay for innovation and quality ... I think that's what has enabled us to do well and grow as a company, unlike some of our competitors. Clearly, the software industry is consolidating, and it's great that Adobe is in a place where we don't have to consolidate.
Sometimes you have to wonder whether independent software makers and the proprietary software world will still be around in a few years.
We would like to think so.
"During the last three years I have worked only 18 months, the strain on my partner, my wallet and myself have been immense. Try explaining to a bank that you're not a high risk for a home loan (they're not interested).
-- Charles Boorman on the skills shortage debate.
They do. I think a lot has to do with how rapidly broadband capabilities increase. So at today's speeds, the power on the desktop is significantly greater than what kind of capability you could get by having an application that runs on a host, vis-a-vis a broadband connection. In fact, we have a service today up in Adobe.com called "create PDF online" where people send us their document and we convert it to PDF (Portable Document Format). That does well because it's pretty simple and doesn't require a lot of bandwidth ... Three, four, five years from now, that will change, and you will see more and more applications that can be host-based.
Adobe has been making a push to increase its presence in enterprises. Acrobat and Portable Document Format are a big part of that plan. Can give me an update on how that's progressing?
There are two ways that we will make PDF more of an enterprise play. One continues to be at the desktop with Acrobat ... A second way is clearly with our server products, where we have specific products to help with the creation of PDF documents, the business process rules, and management of the documents, as well as the extraction of information from those documents.
How did you change the mind-set within Adobe toward catering to big companies? Isn't that a major shift for you?
Well, it's a shift. This is going to sound strange at first, but I think about a company like Honda and what they were able to do over time. They build great engines and have an excellent manufacturing processes. That's their core competency, and they figured out how to grow from a lawn tools company to a motor scooter company to a motorcycle company to a small-car manufacturer, to a large-car manufacturer, to luxury-car manufacturer. And now they're manufacturing jet engines and they're working with GE on a small personal aircraft.
Continued ...
1%
4%
