Downturn will impact Adobe's business, says Shantanu Narayen
Long term, the Web’s increasing use of video and complex images and animation is good for Adobe Systems, the developer of the most popular software for creating multimedia online.
But short term, the global downturn is significantly affecting the company’s business, said CEO Shantanu Narayen. The Silicon Valley software maker has responded by sharply cutting hiring and reining back expenses.
“Clearly we do see we’re in a global financial crisis,” Narayen said at the Adobe Max conference in San Francisco. “This will leave an impact short term on Adobe’s business.”
During a Q&A will analysts and press, Chief Financial Officer Mark Garrett said the company has “limited our hiring fairly dramatically.” Last year at this time, Adobe was hiring about 100 people a quarter. Now it is just focused on key positions in critical areas, he said.
The company has had a campaign in place for several months to restrain spending and focus investment dollars on top priorities, he added.
The executives did not offer further detail on the business impact. And it largely resisted commenting on the launch of Creative Suite 4 – the packaged suites of its popular Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat software responsible for a big piece of the company’s revenue.
“It’s early with CS4,” said Narayen. The company said it is looking at marketing messages to stimulate sales.
