Flashing bright

Brands like Xerox, Kodak, Orkut, Bisleri and Adobe share one thing in common. To a large extent and for quite a good while, they have almost stood eponymous for the markets they operate in.

Adobe, a major supplier of business publishing software and design tools and the maker of Photoshop editing and Acrobat document-sharing software is one such company. But as times, technology and competition turnaround, it becomes tough to keep one’s menu hot and tempting.

Competition couldn’t get sharper as Microsoft attempts to move into the graphic design and animation tool software business with Microsoft Expression suite pitted against Adobe's Creative Suite 3 software.

Added to this, Silverlight that challenges Adobe’s jewel Flash player. Adobe, that has dominated the market with its Flash software, last December acquired animation tools firm Macromedia for $3.4 billion.

While it has halted sales of LiveMotion, the company's application for creating animation content in formats such as Macromedia's Flash and Apple's QuickTime, Adobe continues to lap up acquisitions like Virtual Ubiquity that apparently signal its intentions to go head-to-head with Google and Microsoft in the web office terrain.

In India, Adobe Systems is rolling out new site licensing options, curriculum and certification programs to tap digital communication in schools and technical institutes and the animation and gaming industry that is set for a leap to $123 billion by 2010.

Pratima Harigunani of CyberMedia News took this opportunity to find out how Adobe intends to sustain and accelerate its might in the existing and upcoming competitive turfs and new markets like RIA as Sandeep Mehrotra, country sales manager, Adobe Systems India Pvt. Ltd, explains the company’s strategy on Creative Suite 3, Flex, Flash Media Server and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime).

What's Adobe's stance against competitive offerings like Microsoft Silverlight, and MS XPS vis-à-vis PDF, Microsoft Expression suite vis-à-vis Adobe's Creative Suite 3 software?

The market for digital content creation technology grew 16 per cent to $3 billion in 2006 from $2.6 billion the previous year, according to research firm Jon Peddie Research. And we compete with Microsoft in more ways than one here. Microsoft has launched offerings like Metro, Acrylic and Silverlight that lock horns with Adobe’s PDF, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash respectively. But Adobe has the huge first mover advantage. We have been in the market for more than 10 years with the Acrobat reader and Macromedia (which was acquired by Adobe in October 2005) has been at this for almost as long with the Flash Player. We will continue to innovate and revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information. Our technologies have redefined business, entertainment, and personal communications by setting new standards for producing and delivering content that engages people virtually anywhere at anytime.

How hot would Web-based applications, YouTube, Web 2.0, RIA, etc. be for Adobe?

We plan to move away from being a product company to providing industry defining platforms that will enable the world to communicate through multiple mediums and engage with rich media with greater ease. The Adobe Flex product line is the most comprehensive solution for delivering Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) across the enterprise and over the Web. RIAs combine best practices in user interaction design by combining the flexibility, interactivity and rich user interfaces of desktop applications with the global reach of Internet applications. Interest in RIAs is increasing; thanks to the phenomenon of user-generated content, social networks and mashups. The Web has become more dynamic than ever before and a platform that goes beyond information dissemination to also facilitates business transactions, collaboration and marketing. Flex enables rapid development of RIA and is meant to be used by developers. Adobe is also taking steps to bring the designers and developers closer by providing toolsets that can help them to collaborate easily.

Any possibilities of backward or forward integration in any way in the animation market? Is the penetration moving in the right direction as you offer your latest product with Creative Suite 3?

According to India's National Association of Software and Service Companies, the global animation development market is expected to grow nine per cent yearly through 2009, to become a $26 billion industry. NASSCOM also projects that in India, animation development will grow 34 per cent yearly through 2009 to become a $950 million market. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium suite seamlessly integrates Adobe’s all new video, audio, and design tools to ensure the industry has the resources to facilitate all aspects of filmmaking and post-production. Its main features cover future-ready tools for delivery of video content everywhere, extended integration for exceptional productivity, Flash CS3 Professional for engaging online experiences, Compositing and animation with After Effects CS3 Professional, Image editing and graphics creation with new Photoshop CS3 Extended and Illustrator CS3 and video production and preview for mobile devices.

What is the future succession strategy on LiveMotion? Is it time for Flash's successor yet? What's Adobe's take on interoperability and inter-compatibility with diverse formats and media creating content for delivery on cell phones, broadcast or the Internet, or a software developer as exemplified by Apple’s QuickTime comprehensive platform?

We see the Flash Media Server as the de facto standard for streaming video in online advertising due to its instant playback, scalability, creative options and reach across all platforms. Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server 3 software has the unique combination of powerful streaming media capabilities and a flexible environment for creating and delivering interactive social media applications to the broadest possible audience. A Flood of Web gadgets extends the mobile Internet. In fact, 2008 will be the year of the small mobile device whose function falls in the gap between notebook PCs and smartphones. Adobe Device Central CS3 is mainly focused on mobile content designers and developers. It has the tools developers need to preview and test mobile content for a wide range of devices and across different media formats, including Flash Lite, bitmap, Web, and video.

How is the publishing outsourcing a.k.a online publishers market shaping up for Adobe?

The publishing landscape is continuing to change rapidly. Both market forces and end-user demands are requiring publishers to atomize their content in order to stay competitive. The growing end-user demand to access content from a range of devices creates a clear need for a dynamic platform that allows publishers to repurpose and repackage their assets. With the growth of online publishing, the emergence of e-books as a viable form of new media, and the explosion of free Internet content, publishers are challenged to find innovative, revenue-generating business models. Publishers need to look for ways to integrate content from disparate sources and reuse this content to create new products that are focused on sub-segments of their markets and tailored for specific audiences thus increasing customer intimacy and retention. Publishers need to react quickly to market changes and experiment with new business models now. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Standard software is the basic toolkit for web designers and developers. It offers fundamental tools for creating and maintaining interactive websites, applications, and mobile device content. Adobe latest Creative Suite3 Web Premium software is a complete solution for creating interactive websites, applications, user interfaces, presentations, mobile device content, and other digital experiences, offering all the capabilities of Creative Suite 3 Web Standard, plus the benefits of Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended.

What is the product, integration or go-to-market strategy around the acquisition of Virtual Ubiquity vis-à-vis rich Internet application (RIA) development built on Adobe AIR?

For over a decade, Adobe Acrobat software and PDF have been the standard way people share and collaborate on high value documents across platforms, with perfect fidelity. Adobe acquired Virtual Ubiquity and its groundbreaking online word processor, Buzzword to further leadership in RIA development and enable fundamental improvements in how people collaborate on documents. Virtual Ubiquity's Buzzword not only delivers a rich authoring and collaboration environment but also exemplifies Adobe's vision for RIA development. At the same time, it is an exciting showcase of the power of Adobe’s RIA technology that raises the bar for the quality of experience people should expect in their applications. Adobe has also thrown open a cross-platform environment called AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) as well as tool developer Flex Builder. In the future, Web developers will be able to use the Adobe Engagement Platform to create Rich Internet Applications that operate with complete independence from the Web browser. Our technology has already started to attract attention in the developer community.

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