History of Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is a publicly held software company that develops and markets applications for digital, print and mobile media. It also manufactures learning tools for its products, font utilities, technical document software and server tools for managing libraries of digital content. Among its most popular products are Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, InDesign and Flash.
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Early History
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Computer scientists Charles Geschke and John Warnock started Adobe in 1982. The company is based in San Jose, California. Its name comes from Adobe Creek near Warnock's Los Altos, California home. Geschke and Warnock left their research jobs at Xerox PARC and initially sought to find a way to accurately print computerized text and images. Their first product, PostScript, can be embedded into devices and software to facilitate accurate rendering and printing. PostScript is now the industry standard for printing systems. The company's next two products, Illustrator (launched in 1986) and Photoshop (launched in 1990), are the industry leaders in illustration and image-editing software.
Stock
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Adobe began as a privately held company. Geschke and Warnock incorporated it on October 26, 1983. The company went public on August 20, 1986 with an initial split-adjusted share price of $ 0.17. Adobe Stock is traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol ADBE. The company reincorporated as a Delaware corporation in May 1997. It does not pay a dividend. The last stock split was in 2005.
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Acquisitions
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Many of the company's most profitable products are acquisitions. It acquired Frame Technology Corporation in 1995 and added the company's technical document processor FrameMaker to its lineup. In 1999, Adobe bought GoLive Systems, the manufacturers of a namesake Web-design editing program. Adobe discontinued GoLive in April 2008 because of its 2005 acquisition of a suite of programs from Macromedia. Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver and several other Web development and graphics programs became a part of Adobe's product lineup when it bought Macromedia.
Revenue and Personnel
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More than half of Adobe's revenue is generated outside the United States. Its fiscal revenues in 2009 totaled $2.946 billion. There are nearly 9,000 Adobe employees worldwide. Geschke and Warnock are co-chairs of the company's board of directors.
Criticism
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Adobe's acquisitions of many software companies led critics to claim that it stifles competition and has a monopoly in some areas. The criticism heightened with the Macromedia acquisition. The federal government investigated Adobe's plans to acquire the company because of antitrust concerns. In 2009, Adobe bought the data collection firm Omniture. Previously, Omniture faced media scrutiny because of its vague responses to questions of how it used consumer data. Adobe has come under fire for embedding Omniture technology into its most popular products without explicitly informing clients.
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References
Resources
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