“Adobe Systems can Photoshop its second-quarter results all it wants. I’m still going to be disappointed by these numbers, even if you gloss over a few of the biggest blemishes,” Anders Bylund writes for The Motley Fool.
“The maker of software for creative professionals reported a 19% year-over-year revenue gain… But for Adobe, it’s a letdown. The annual sales growth in the last three quarters was 41%, 34%, and 37%, in that order, so a mere 19% is a very weak trend,” Bylund writes.
“Color me unimpressed by Adobe. Is the company lowballing us to set itself up for a buyout by some rich rival in digital media, like Apple or Microsoft? Nah, too much conspiracy theory for my tastes,” Bylund writes. “All the same, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this corner of the market consolidate a bit — starting with Adobe.”
Full article here.
We cannot imagine that the FTC would ever approve of Microsoft buying Adobe.
MacDailyNews Note: Adobe’s market value is currently $22.8 billion. Apple’s is $151.1 billion. Apple is also debt-free and has approximately $20 billion in cash on hand currently.
When will this nonsense end?!? Enough with the Adobe/Apple rumors!!
Apple should have bought Macromedia and own Dreamweaver and Flash. Forget Adobe!
No, Apple will not buy Adobe. They don’t need Flash. They don’t need Acrobat. They don’t need Dreamweaver. So, to buy Adobe it would be for Photoshop……..and it doesn’t make sense.
Step 1: Apple buys Adobe.
Step 2: Slowly but surely every app is optimized for OS X compatibility, while each windoze version lags the Mac release date by 4 months with less features or is discontinued completely.
Step 3: There is no step 3.
yes, please buy adobe. I agree with Please Bring Back Rose
Not going to happen. Would be nice to see Apple get their hands on Adobe’s interface (and unify it) as they seem to be going in opposite directions.
Part of their disappointing sales may be due to the bloatware they seem to be fond of generating these days. Some new features in the CS3 suite are nice, but hardly worth the upgrade price in most cases. They should take a page from Apple’s Snow Leopard book and concentrate on unifying and sharpening their existing apps instead of cramming more and more “features” in places where they’re not really necessary.
Ok, now we’re on the subject.
The FTFF campaign needs to hit Apple hard.
Snow Leopard is getting a good under-the-hood tweak, but if we put the pressure on them Apple might just decide to finally fix the flippin Finder once and for all.
Adobe dragged its feet for far too long with CS2 and Intel Macs – to the extent that if you ask any professional, they’ll tell you the two, when combined, suck! EPS files [surely one of the worst and now oldest file formats in digital media], have a habit of crashing any Intel Mac when trying to print or make pdfs.
It’s got so bad that my studio routinely changes eps files to either ‘.ai’ or ‘.tif’ files, before trying to print, or uses one of our CS3 equipped machines.
Buy Adobe, create a new division [think Claris, or FileMakerPro], move InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat into this semi-autonomous division. Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks and the rest can then be sold off. Reduce the bloated mess that Acrobat has become and move it away from the Windows-centric world it currently lives in. Then licence everything.
Adobe has old legacy apps (except maybe the Macromedia ones) the current managent have used to maximize profit (by not investing in development).
Right now there is a huge opportunity to introduce a set of modern apps on the market. A company like Apple (or some other serious SW company, maybe even MS) could kick some Adobe butt if they set their mind to it. Why buy when you could kill the competition?
“Adobe Systems can Photoshop its second-quarter results all it wants.”
Only one thing is sure. The Fool can expect a letter from Adobe admonishing them for using their trademark as a verb.
Apple should just buy Illustrator and Photoshop from Adobe, and let Adobe ride Flash and the rest of it down the tubes.
I’d like to see Apple invest in Adobe to the point where it would prevent MS from gobbling them up and ruining all our lives.
Apple is focused on growth industries (digital downloads of movies, music) and consumer goods (iPods, iPhones) to consume the movies and music. Content creation in Adobe’s portfolio had it’s heyday years ago when desktop publishing and the internet took off.
The biggest potential growth area in Adobe’s portfolio is video. Apple already has Final Cut Studio, the hardware to match and they’re up against Avid. Yes, Acrobat is growing very rapidly but does the growth of Acrobat justify buying Adobe? I personally don’t think so.
“We cannot imagine that the FTC would ever approve of Microsoft buying Adobe.”
You’ll hear my primal scream if they do. >.<
Who does not have ever heard about Photoshop? Photoshop is may be the only application missing from the apple’s suites since Flash will b no longer necessary with cooca mobile and h234 compression.
May be they should buy Corel..
@ChrissyOne
“”We cannot imagine that the FTC would ever approve of Microsoft buying Adobe.”
You’ll hear my primal scream if they do. >.<“
Me too. Also look what MS got for their monopolizing ways. A slap on the wrist.
ChrissyOne,
I would rather hear your primal scream under more pleasant circumstances!
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But hey, then at least I might be able to take MS down from the inside… {laughs evilly}
And Photoshop’s erroneous error message using the Type tool (Cannot complete due to program error) in CS3 in Intel Macs. Seriously, that error has followed Photoshop around for years.
2nd laziest software developers EVER.
Simply put, Apple would need to lay out around $11 billion to acquire 50%+ of Adobe shares.
Apple would never do it via just cash. Rather, roughly half of the purchase would be via Apple Stock. Suddenly the buyout requires $5 – $6 billion of cash, something Apple could live with and still have $15 billion left over.
Would the FCC allow Apple to pull in Adobe, that is the question?… My guess is yes. Apple can effectively show how MicroSoft has a rather large creative closet in and of itself (Publisher, Silverlight, the back-end in .net, and the list goes on). All Adobe competition for sure.
If Adobe is never acquired they will slowly get beaten down by Redmond and Cupertino, it’s that simple. Those with an OS platform win application development. It’s that simple. One by one Apple will release competitive products to Adobe, and so will Redmond…
Best for Adobe to sell out to Apple – if they ever get the chance.
could you imagine how awesome it would be to stroll into adobe 20billion in cash trucks and buy the place
Flash is dead. Long live SproutCore.
Apple does not need to run Adobe.
No, not gonna happen, no way. What synergies would be achieved through this acquisition, other than perhaps Apple controlling the graphics, publishing and photo editing markets?
Wait a minute – come to think of it, that’s a LOT! Still, don’t see Apple venturing into that space.
However, if MS makes a pitch for Adobe, then it’s a whole new ball game.