Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American
multinational computer software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
company
incorporated in Delaware
The Delaware General Corporation Law (Title 8, Chapter 1 of the Delaware Code) is the statute of the Delaware Code that governs corporate law in the U.S. state of Delaware. Adopted in 1899, the statute has since seen Delaware become the most imp ...
and headquartered in
San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...
. It has historically specialized in software for the creation and publication of a wide range of content, including graphics, photography, illustration, animation, multimedia/video, motion pictures, and print. Its flagship products include
Adobe Photoshop image editing software;
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and design program developed and marketed by Adobe Inc. Originally designed for the Apple Macintosh, development of Adobe Illustrator began in 1985. Along with Creative Cloud (Adobe's shift to month ...
vector-based illustration software; Adobe
Acrobat Reader
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and Web services developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
The family comprises Acrobat Reader (formerly Reader), Acrobat (former ...
and the
Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating syste ...
(PDF); and a host of tools primarily for audio-visual content creation, editing and publishing. Adobe offered a bundled solution of its products named
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Creative Suite (CS) is a discontinued software suite of graphic design, video editing, and web development applications developed by Adobe Systems.
The last of the Creative Suite versions, Adobe Creative Suite 6 (CS6), was launched at a re ...
, which evolved into a subscription
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is con ...
(SaaS) offering named
Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Creative Cloud is a set of applications and services from Adobe Inc. that gives subscribers access to a collection of software used for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, along with a set of mobile applications an ...
.
The company also expanded into digital marketing software and in 2021 was considered one of the top global leaders in Customer Experience Management (CXM).
Adobe was founded in December 1982
by
John Warnock
John Edward Warnock (born October 6, 1940) is an American computer scientist and businessman best known for co-founding Adobe Systems Inc., the graphics and publishing software company, with Charles Geschke. Warnock was President of Adobe for ...
and
Charles Geschke
Charles Matthew "Chuck" Geschke (September 11, 1939 – April 16, 2021) was an American businessman and computer scientist best known for founding the graphics and publishing software company Adobe Inc. with John Warnock in 1982, and co-creati ...
, who established the company after leaving
Xerox PARC
PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...
to develop and sell the
PostScript page description language
In digital printing, a page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap (or generally raster graphics). An overlapping term is printer control la ...
. In 1985,
Apple Computer licensed PostScript for use in its
LaserWriter
The LaserWriter is a laser printer with built-in PostScript interpreter sold by Apple, Inc. from 1985 to 1988. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. In combination with WYSIWYG publishing software like PageMake ...
printers, which helped spark the
desktop publishing
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online ...
revolution. Adobe later developed animation and multimedia through its acquisition of
Macromedia
Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe System ...
, from which it acquired
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...
; video editing and compositing software with
Adobe Premiere
Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based and non-linear video editing software application (NLE) developed by Adobe Inc. and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. First launched in 2003, Adobe Premiere Pro is a success ...
, later known as
Adobe Premiere Pro;
low-code
A low-code development platform (LCDP) provides a development environment used to create application software through a graphical user interface. A low-coded platform may produce entirely operational applications, or require additional coding for s ...
web development with
Adobe Muse
Adobe Muse is a discontinued no code offline website builder used to create fixed, fluid, or adaptive websites, without the need to write code. Adobe Muse is one of the early pioneer of current 2020s software design trend of no code movement. ...
; and a suite of software for digital marketing management.
As of 2022, Adobe has more than 26,000 employees worldwide.
Adobe also has major development operations in the United States in
Newton,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
Arden Hills
Arden Hills is a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 9,552 at the 2010 census. Bethel University and Seminary is located in the city of Arden Hills. Also, the campus of University of Northwestern – St. Paul s ...
,
Lehi,
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
,
Austin and
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
. It also has major development operations in
Noida
Noida, short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, is a planned city located in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Noida is a satellite city of Delhi and is a part of the National Capital Region (NCR) o ...
and
Bangalore
Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...
in India.
History
The company was started in John Warnock's garage. The name of the company, Adobe, comes from
Adobe Creek in
Los Altos, California, which ran behind Warnock's house.
That creek is so named because of
the type of clay found there (Adobe being a Spanish word for ''Mudbrick''), which alludes to the creative nature of the company's software. Adobe's corporate logo features a stylized "A" and was designed by graphic designer Marva Warnock, John Warnock's wife. In 2020, the company updated its visual identity, including updating its logo to a single color, an all-red logo that is warmer and more contemporary.
Steve Jobs attempted to buy the company for $5 million in 1982, but Warnock and Geschke refused. Their investors urged them to work something out with Jobs, so they agreed to sell him shares worth 19 percent of the company. Jobs paid a five-times multiple of their company's valuation at the time, plus a five-year license fee for PostScript, in advance. The purchase and advance made Adobe the first company in the history of Silicon Valley to become profitable in its first year.
Warnock and Geschke considered various business options including a copy-service business and a turnkey system for office printing. Then they chose to focus on developing specialized printing software and created the Adobe PostScript page description language.
PostScript was the first truly international standard for computer printing as it included algorithms describing the letter-forms of many languages. Adobe added kanji printer products in 1988. Warnock and Geschke were also able to bolster the credibility of PostScript by connecting with a typesetting manufacturer. They weren't able to work with Compugraphic, but then worked with Linotype to license the Helvetica and Times Roman fonts (through the Linotron 100). By 1987, PostScript had become the industry-standard printer language with more than 400 third-party software programs and licensing agreements with 19 printer companies.
Warnock described the language as "extensible" in its ability to apply graphic arts standards to office printing.
Adobe's first products after
PostScript were
digital fonts which they released in a proprietary format called
Type 1, worked on by Bill Paxton after he left Stanford. Apple subsequently developed a competing standard,
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating ...
, which provided full scalability and precise control of the
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the ...
pattern created by the font's outlines, and licensed it to
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
.
In the mid-1980s, Adobe entered the consumer software market with
Illustrator, a
vector
Vector most often refers to:
*Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction
*Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism
Vector may also refer to:
Mathematic ...
-based drawing program for the
Apple Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
. Illustrator, which grew from the firm's in-house font-development software, helped popularize PostScript-enabled laser printers.
Adobe entered the
NASDAQ Composite index in August 1986. Its revenue has grown from roughly $1 billion in 1999 to $4 billion in 2012.
Adobe's fiscal years run from December to November. For example, the 2020 fiscal year ended on November 27, 2020.
In 1989, Adobe introduced what was to become its
flagship product, a graphics editing program for the Macintosh called
Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...
. Stable and full-featured, Photoshop 1.0 was ably marketed by Adobe and soon dominated the market.
In 1993, Adobe introduced
PDF, the Portable Document Format, and its
Adobe Acrobat and Reader software. PDF is now an International Standard:
ISO 32000-1:2008.
In December 1991, Adobe released
Adobe Premiere
Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based and non-linear video editing software application (NLE) developed by Adobe Inc. and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. First launched in 2003, Adobe Premiere Pro is a success ...
, which Adobe rebranded as
Adobe Premiere Pro in 2003. In 1992, Adobe acquired
OCR Systems
OCR Systems, Inc., was an American computer hardware manufacturer and software publisher dedicated to optical character recognition technologies. The company's first product, the System 1000 in 1970, was used by numerous large corporations for bi ...
, Inc. In 1994, Adobe acquired the
Aldus Corporation
Aldus Corporation was an American software company best known for its pioneering desktop publishing (DTP) software. PageMaker, the company's most well-known product, ushered in the modern era of desktop computers such as the Macintosh seeing ...
and added
PageMaker
Adobe PageMaker (formerly Aldus) is a discontinued desktop publishing computer program introduced in 1985 by the Aldus Corporation on the Apple Macintosh. The combination of the Macintosh's graphical user interface, PageMaker publishing software, ...
and
After Effects
Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc., and used in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Among other things, After Ef ...
to its product line later in the year; it also controls the
TIFF
Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word process ...
file format. In the same year, Adobe acquired LaserTools Corp and Compution Inc. In 1995, Adobe added
FrameMaker
Adobe FrameMaker is a document processor designed for writing and editing large or complex documents, including structured documents. It was originally developed by Frame Technology Corporation, which was bought by Adobe.
Overview
FrameMaker ...
, the long-document DTP application, to its product line after Adobe acquired Frame Technology Corp. In 1996, Adobe acquired Ares Software Corp. In 2002, Adobe acquired Canadian company Accelio (also known as
JetForm).
In May 2003, Adobe purchased audio editing and multitrack recording software Cool Edit Pro from Syntrillium Software for $16.5 million, as well as a large
loop library called "Loopology". Adobe then renamed Cool Edit Pro to "
Adobe Audition
Adobe Audition is a digital audio workstation developed by Adobe Inc. featuring both a multitrack, non-destructive mix/edit environment and a destructive-approach waveform editing view.
Origins
Syntrillium Software was founded in the early 19 ...
" and included it in the Creative Suite.
On December 3, 2005, Adobe acquired its main rival,
Macromedia
Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe System ...
, in a
stock swap valued at about $3.4 billion, adding
ColdFusion,
Contribute,
Captivate, Breeze (rebranded as
Adobe Connect),
Director
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine
* ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker
* ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty
Music
* Director (band), an Irish rock band
* ''D ...
,
Dreamweaver,
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large number of devices ...
,
Flash
Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Fictional aliases
* Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed:
** Flash (Barry Allen)
** Flash (Jay Garrick)
** Wally West, the first Kid F ...
,
FlashPaper
FlashPaper (originally known as ''Flash Printer'') was a software application developed by Blue Pacific Software before its acquisition by Macromedia, which was later acquired by Adobe Systems. Its functional design mimics Adobe Acrobat Distille ...
,
Flex,
FreeHand,
HomeSite,
JRun
JRun is a J2EE application server, originally developed in 1997 as a Java Servlet engine by Live Software and subsequently purchased by Allaire, who brought out the first J2EE compliant version. It was acquired by Macromedia prior to its 2001 ta ...
,
Presenter
A presenter is a person or organization responsible for the running of a public event, or someone who conveys information on media via a broadcasting outlet. Presenter may refer to:
People
* News presenter, person who presents news during a new ...
, and
Authorware to Adobe's product line.
Adobe released Adobe Media Player in April 2008. On April 27, Adobe discontinued development and sales of its older
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
/web development software,
GoLive, in favor of
Dreamweaver. Adobe offered a discount on Dreamweaver for GoLive users and supports those who still use GoLive with online tutorials and migration assistance. On June 1, Adobe launched
Acrobat.com, a series of
web application
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serv ...
s geared for collaborative work.
Creative Suite 4, which includes Design, Web, Production Premium, and Master Collection came out in October 2008 in six configurations at prices from about US$1,700 to $2,500 or by individual application.
The Windows version of Photoshop includes 64-bit processing.
On December 3, 2008, Adobe laid off 600 of its employees (8% of the worldwide staff) citing the
weak economic environment.
On September 15, 2009, Adobe Systems announced that it would acquire online marketing and web analytics company
Omniture
Omniture is an online marketing and web analytics business unit in Orem, Utah. It was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2009. Until 2011, Omniture operated as a business unit within Adobe as the "Omniture Business Unit", but as of 2012 Adobe began reti ...
for $1.8 billion.
The deal was completed on October 23, 2009. Former Omniture products were integrated into the
Adobe Marketing Cloud
Adobe Experience Cloud (AEC), formerly Adobe Marketing Cloud (AMC), is a collection of integrated online marketing and web analytics products by Adobe Inc.
History
Adobe Experience Cloud includes a set of analytics, social, advertising, media ...
.
![Adobe Systems Ottawa office](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Adobe_Systems_Ottawa_office.jpg)
On November 10, 2009, the company laid off a further 680 employees.
Adobe's 2010 was marked by continuing front-and-back arguments with Apple over the latter's non-support for Adobe Flash on its
iPhone,
iPad
The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...
and other products. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs claimed that Flash was not reliable or secure enough, while Adobe executives have argued that Apple wish to maintain control over the iOS platform. In April 2010, Steve Jobs published a post titled "Thoughts on Flash" where he outlined his thoughts on
Flash
Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Fictional aliases
* Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed:
** Flash (Barry Allen)
** Flash (Jay Garrick)
** Wally West, the first Kid F ...
and the rise of
HTML 5
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML L ...
.
In July 2010, Adobe bought Day Software integrating their line of CQ Products: WCM, DAM, SOCO, and Mobile
In January 2011, Adobe acquired DemDex, Inc. with the intent of adding DemDex's audience-optimization software to its online marketing suite. At Photoshop World 2011, Adobe unveiled a new mobile photo service.
[Darrell Etherington, GigaOm.]
Adobe tries mobile photos as a service with Carousel
." September 7, 2011. Retrieved September 12, 2011. Carousel is a new application for iPhone, iPad, and
Mac that uses Photoshop Lightroom technology for users to adjust and fine-tune images on all platforms.
[ Carousel will also allow users to automatically sync, share and browse photos.][ The service was later renamed to "Adobe Revel".
In October 2011, Adobe acquired Nitobi Software, the makers of the ]mobile application
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on des ...
development framework ''PhoneGap''. As part of the acquisition, the source code of PhoneGap was submitted to the Apache Foundation
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is an American nonprofit corporation (classified as a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States) to support a number of open source software projects. The ASF was formed from a group of developers of the ...
, where it became Apache Cordova
Apache Cordova (formerly PhoneGap) is a mobile application development framework created by Nitobi. Adobe Systems purchased Nitobi in 2011, rebranded it as PhoneGap, and later released an open-source version of the software called Apache Cordov ...
.
In November 2011, Adobe announced that they would cease development of Flash for mobile devices following version 11.1. Instead, it would focus on HTML 5 for mobile devices. In December 2011, Adobe announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Efficient Frontier.
In December 2012, Adobe opened a new corporate campus in Lehi, Utah.
In 2013, Adobe endured a major security breach. Vast portions of the source code for the company's software were stolen and posted online and over 150 million records of Adobe's customers have been made readily available for download. In 2012, about 40 million sets of payment card information were compromised by a hack of Adobe.[Skimming Off the Top; Why America has such a high rate of payment-card fraud, February 15, 2014, The Economist]
A class-action lawsuit
A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...
alleging that the company suppressed employee compensation was filed against Adobe, and three other Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...
-based companies in a California federal district court in 2013. In May 2014, it was revealed the four companies, Adobe, Apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
, Google, and Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
had reached agreement with the plaintiffs, 64,000 employees of the four companies, to pay a sum of $324.5 million to settle the suit.
In March 2018, at Adobe Summit, the company and NVIDIA
Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
publicized a key association to quickly upgrade their industry-driving AI and profound learning innovations. Expanding on years of coordinated effort, the organizations will work to streamline the Adobe Sensei AI and machine learning structure for NVIDIA GPUs
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...
. The joint effort will speed time to showcase and enhance the execution of new Sensei-powered services for Adobe Creative Cloud and Experience Cloud clients and engineers.
Adobe and NVIDIA have co-operated for over 10 years on empowering GPU quickening for a wide arrangement of Adobe's creative and computerized encounter items. This incorporates Sensei-powered features, for example, auto lip-sync in Adobe Character Animator CC and face-aware editing in Photoshop CC, and also cloud-based AI/ML items and features, for example, picture investigation for Adobe Stock and Lightroom CC and auto-labeling in Adobe Experience Supervisor.
In May 2018, Adobe stated they would buy e-commerce services provider Magento Commerce from private equity firm Permira for $1.68 billion. This deal will help bolster its Experience Cloud business, which provides services including analytics, advertising, and marketing. The deal is closed on June 19, 2018.
In September 2018, Adobe announced its acquisition of marketing automation software company Marketo
Marketo, Inc. is an American software company, headquartered in San Mateo, California. Marketo develops and sells marketing automation software for account-based marketing and other marketing services and products including SEO and content crea ...
.
In October 2018, Adobe officially changed its name from Adobe Systems Incorporated to Adobe Inc.
In January 2019, Adobe announced its acquisition of 3D texturing company Allegorithmic.
In 2020, the annual Adobe Summit was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. The event took place online and saw over 21 million total video views and over 2.2 million visits to the event website.
The software giant has imposed a ban on the political ads features on its digital advert sales platform as the United States presidential elections approach.
On November 9, 2020, Adobe announced it will spend US$1.5 billion to acquire Workfront
Adobe Workfront is a Lehi, Utah-based software company that develops web-based work management and project management software that features enterprise work management, issue tracking, document management, time tracking and portfolio management. ...
, a provider of marketing collaboration software. The acquisition was completed in early December 2020.
On August 19, 2021, Adobe announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Frame.io, a leading cloud-based video collaboration platform. The transaction is valued at $1.275 billion and closed during the fourth quarter of Adobe's 2021 fiscal year.
On September 15, 2021, Adobe Inc formally announced that it will add payment services to its e-commerce platform this year, allowing merchants on their platform a method to accept payments including credit cards and PayPal.
In September 2022, Adobe announced that it had agreed to buy the software design start-up Figma for $20billion. The cloud-based design software from Figma directly competes with Adobe XD. The deal faces regulatory scrutiny.
Finances
Products
Adobe's currently supported roster of software, online services and file formats comprises the following ():
;Digital Marketing Management Software
: Adobe Experience Cloud, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM 6.2), XML Documentation add-on (for AEM), Mixamo
Mixamo () is a 3D computer graphics technology company. Based in San Francisco, the company develops and sells web-based services for 3D character animation. Mixamo's technologies use machine learning methods to automate the steps of the charac ...
; Formats
: Portable Document Format
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating syste ...
(PDF), PDF's predecessor PostScript, ActionScript
ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (meaning ...
, Shockwave Flash ( SWF), Flash Video
Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There ar ...
(FLV), and ''Filmstrip'' (.flm)
; Web-hosted services
: Adobe Color, Photoshop Express
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...
, Acrobat.com, Behance
Behance (stylized as Bēhance) is a social media platform owned by Adobe whose main focus is to showcase and discover creative work.
Behance was founded by Matias Corea and Scott Belsky in November 2005. It was acquired by Adobe in December 201 ...
and Adobe Spark
The following is a list of software products by Adobe Inc.
Active products
Software suites Experience Cloud
Adobe Experience Cloud (AEC) is a collection of integrated online marketing and Web analytics solutions by Adobe Inc. It includes a ...
; Adobe Renderer
: Adobe Media Encoder
Adobe Creative Cloud is a set of applications and services from Adobe Inc. that gives subscribers access to a collection of software used for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, along with a set of mobile applications a ...
; Adobe Stock
: A microstock
Microstock photography, also known as micropayment photography, is a part of the stock photography industry. What defines a company as a microstock photography company is that they (1) source their images almost exclusively via the Internet, (2) d ...
agency that presently provides over 57 million high-resolution, royalty-free images and videos available to license (via subscription or credit purchase methods). In 2015, Adobe acquired Fotolia, a stock content marketplace founded in 2005 by Thibaud Elziere, Oleg Tscheltzoff, and Patrick Chassany which operated in 23 countries. It is run as a stand-alone website.
; Adobe Experience Platform
: A family of content, development, and customer relationship management products, with what Adobe calls the "next generation" of its Sensei artificial intelligence and machine learning framework, introduced in March 2019.
Reception
Since 2000, Fortune has recognized Adobe as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For. In 2021, Adobe was ranked 16th. Glassdoor recognized Adobe as a Best Place to Work. In October 2021, Fast Company included Adobe on their Brands That Matter list. In October 2008, Adobe Systems Canada Inc. was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers
Canada's Top 100 Employers is an annual editorial competition that recognizes the best places in Canada to work. First held in 1999, the project aims to single out the employers that lead their industries in offering exceptional working conditions ...
" by Mediacorp Canada Inc. and was featured in ''Maclean's
''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian persp ...
'' newsmagazine.
Adobe received a five-star rating from the Electronic Frontier Foundation with regards to its handling of government data requests in 2017.
Criticisms
Pricing
Adobe has been criticized for its pricing practices, with retail prices being up to twice as much in non-US countries. For example, it is significantly cheaper to pay for a return airfare ticket to the United States and purchase one particular collection of Adobe's software there than to buy it locally in Australia.
After Adobe revealed the pricing for the Creative Suite 3 Master Collection, which was £1,000 higher for European customers, a petition to protest over "unfair pricing" was published and signed by 10,000 users. In June 2009, Adobe further increased its prices in the UK by 10% in spite of weakening of the pound against the dollar, and UK users were not allowed to buy from the US store.
Adobe's Reader
A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to:
Computing and technology
* Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader
* Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application
* A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...
and Flash
Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Fictional aliases
* Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed:
** Flash (Barry Allen)
** Flash (Jay Garrick)
** Wally West, the first Kid F ...
programs were listed on "The 10 most hated programs of all time" article by ''TechRadar
''TechRadar'' is an online publication owned by Future and focused on technology. It has editorial teams in the US, UK and Australia and provides news and reviews of tech products and gadgets. It was launched in 2007 and expanded to the US in ...
''.
Security
Hackers have exploited vulnerabilities in Adobe programs, such as Adobe Reader, to gain unauthorized access to computers. Adobe's Flash Player has also been criticized for, among other things, suffering from performance, memory usage and security problems (see criticism of Flash Player). A report by security researchers from Kaspersky Lab
Kaspersky Lab (; Russian: Лаборатория Касперского, tr. ''Laboratoriya Kasperskogo'') is a Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and operated by a holding company in th ...
criticized Adobe for producing the products having top 10 security vulnerabilities.
Observers noted that Adobe was spying on its customers by including spyware
Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their priva ...
in the Creative Suite 3 software and quietly sending user data to a firm named Omniture
Omniture is an online marketing and web analytics business unit in Orem, Utah. It was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2009. Until 2011, Omniture operated as a business unit within Adobe as the "Omniture Business Unit", but as of 2012 Adobe began reti ...
. When users became aware, Adobe explained what the suspicious software did and admitted that they: "could and should do a better job taking security concerns into account". When a security flaw was later discovered in Photoshop CS5, Adobe sparked outrage by saying it would leave the flaw unpatched, so anyone who wanted to use the software securely would have to pay for an upgrade. Following a fierce backlash Adobe decided to provide the software patch.
Adobe has been criticized for pushing unwanted software including third-party browser toolbars and free virus scanners, usually as part of the Flash
Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Fictional aliases
* Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed:
** Flash (Barry Allen)
** Flash (Jay Garrick)
** Wally West, the first Kid F ...
update process, and for pushing a third-party scareware
Scareware is a form of malware which uses social engineering to cause shock, anxiety, or the perception of a threat in order to manipulate users into buying unwanted software. Scareware is part of a class of malicious software that includes r ...
program designed to scare users into paying for unneeded system repairs.
Customer data breach
On October 3, 2013, the company initially revealed that 2.9 million customers' sensitive and personal data was stolen in a security breach which included encrypted credit card information. Adobe later admitted that 38 million active users have been affected and the attackers obtained access to their IDs and encrypted passwords, as well as to many inactive Adobe accounts. The company did not make it clear if all the personal information was encrypted, such as email addresses and physical addresses, though data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete Value_(semiotics), values that convey information, describing quantity, qualitative property, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of sy ...
privacy laws in 44 states require this information to be encrypted.
A 3.8 GB file stolen from Adobe and containing 152 million usernames, reversibly encrypted passwords and unencrypted password hints was posted on AnonNews.org. LastPass
LastPass is a password manager distributed in subscription form as well as a freemium model with limited functionality. The standard version of LastPass comes with a web interface, but also includes plugins for various web browsers and apps fo ...
, a password security firm, said that Adobe failed to use best practices for securing the passwords and has not salted them. Another security firm, Sophos, showed that Adobe used a weak encryption method permitting the recovery of a lot of information with very little effort. According to IT expert Simon Bain, Adobe has failed its customers and 'should hang their heads in shame'.
Many of the credit cards were tied to the Creative Cloud software-by-subscription service. Adobe offered its affected US customers a free membership in a credit monitoring service, but no similar arrangements have been made for non-US customers. When a data breach occurs in the US, penalties depend on the state where the victim resides, not where the company is based.
After stealing the customers' data, cyber-thieves also accessed Adobe's source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
repository, likely in mid-August 2013. Because hackers
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...
acquired copies of the source code of Adobe