Tag: Adobe

Watchdog sniffs out the Adobe-Figma merger

Posted on August 28, 2023 by - News

The Competition and Markets Authority has found that the proposed Adobe-Figma merger could potentially negatively affect the UK digital economy.
The CMA found that this acquisition is restricting some digital apps, websites and other products in the country, ultimately harming the country’s digital economy as businesses using these tools get affected.

Adobe is well known in the global software industry and specialises in photo editing, video editing, motion designing and other such interactive content tools while the 2012-founded Figma is a leader in screen designing and whiteboarding tools.

Screen designing software is crucial for making digital products and they are extensively used for making websites and applications. In September last year, Adobe announced that they are buying Figma for $20 billion.

Online consumer electronics sales slump

Posted on August 10, 2023 by - News

Online prices for consumer electronics have declined by 3.2 per cent year-over-year, according to a new report by Adobe Analytics.

Amazon’s Prime Day has become a benchmark for pricing fluctuations and user behaviour, providing a unique prism to observe the complicated dance of supply, demand and modern consumer psychology.

According to Adobe Analytics data, the online pricing of items across all categories declined by 3.2 per cent year-over-year in July, and by 2.1 per cent when compared to June 2023. Cheaper online costs were mostly found in non-essential items such as electronics, toys, clothes and sporting goods, which were discounted during Amazon Prime Day.

Looking at the analysis of the July 2023 data by Adobe Analytics on price fluctuations across product categories, it revealed that compared to the same month in 2022, online grocery prices increased by 6.7 per cent.

This points to a decrease from the preceding annual price rises of 8.1 per cent in June, 9.7 per cent in May and 9.1 per cent in April. The apex of online grocery price inflation was in February when prices were up by 14.2 per cent year-over-year.

On electronics, the prices dropped significantly over the past few months, culminating in July. This decline was partly catalysed by the additional discounts offered during Prime Day, rendering electronics 2.1 per cent cheaper than they were in June. As a result, electronics prices had an 11 per cent drop in July, following a 10 per cent dip in June over the same period last year.

Tech Data expands self service operation

Posted on September 14, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Tech Data is increasing investment in its Software Store self-service renewals platform introducing a monthly data pack option for partners that have a large number of upcoming renewals and providing dedicated business development support.

The company said it is seeing steady growth in usage of the nine portals via which software and service renewals can be tracked, quoted for, and ordered, and is on track to achieve half of all software licensing renewals through them by the end of the year.

Michael Holden, Tech Data, UK and Ireland, business development manager eCommerce, said that the new data pack option will provide larger reseller partners with all pertinent information on their up-and-coming renewals for automatic input into their own internal systems.

“Larger partners may have thousands of renewals they want to track and might need to give access to many different users while ensuring they conform to security and data policies. We’ve developed the data pack option to provide partners with an uncomplicated way to get all the information they need to automate their renewals business, whilst ensuring they are compliant.”

Microsoft, c3.ai and Adobe take on Salesforce

Posted on November 2, 2020 by - News

Microsoft campusMicrosoft and Adobe are launching a new platform to take on the market dominance of Salesforce.

C3 AI CRM is powered by the core functionality of Dynamics 365 and is combined with Adobe’s real-time customer profiles and journey management, as well as c3.ai’s industry-specific AI capabilities.

The AI-driven CRM platform is, it’s claimed, purpose-built for specific industries and uses data from any source to produce meaningful business insights. The collective claims that conventional CRM is not sufficient for the modern age, given that AI can’t be used to analyse much of the data because they weren’t built with the appropriate architectures.

Nintex sign powered by Adobe

Posted on January 25, 2019 by - News

Nintex announced a strategic partnership with Adobe to bring new native electronic signature capabilities, called Nintex Signup, powered by Adobe Sign, to Nintex partners and customers.

Nintex Sign believes it provides fully integrated e-signatures within its Process Platform to securely complete transactions. Thousands of partners, public, private, and government organisations use the Nintex platform every day to build process apps, automate complicated workflows, and generate all kinds of documents.

Nintex CEO Eric Johnson said: “The new offering produced by this partnership powerfully extends the native capabilities of Nintex Platform to now include industry-leading Adobe-backed eSignatures. Nintex Sign, powered by our strategic partnership with Adobe, will bring tremendous value to our thriving Nintex process management and automation community.”

Ashley Still, vice president and general manager, Adobe Document Cloud, added, “We believe great experiences for customers and employees start where the document does. With Nintex Sign powered by Adobe Sign, we’re excited to bring these two best-in-class solutions together, making it easier for Nintex’s global partner network and customers to transform digital document workflows.”

Aragon Research CEO Jim Lundy, the leading analyst covering the fast-growing, multi-billion dollar Digital Transaction Management and Workflow and Content Automation markets commented, “This strategic partnership brings together two of the leading providers in Documents, eSignatures, Process Management, Workflow and Content Automation.”

Nintex is offering current customers who sign up for Nintex Sign powered by Adobe Sign with a special “introductory” offer. Nintex customers should contact their Nintex account manager for details.

Microsoft and Adobe getting closer

Posted on March 21, 2017 by - News

dc34c48293d48b194affb44168216351Microsoft and Adobe  are joining to make their respective sales and marketing software products better at seeing off Salesforce and Oracle.

The pair said they will work together to create a a shared data format between Adobe’s marketing software suite, which the company is re-naming its Experience Cloud, and Microsoft’s sales software, called Dynamics, allowing the software systems to work together seamlessly.

“It’s going to enable to customers to go beyond the current (software) silos they have to navigate today,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the cloud and enterprise division at Microsoft.

For Adobe the partnership builds on a deal it struck with Microsoft last year to use its Azure cloud computing services.

Adobe has been pushing into business-to-business marketing software since it purchased Omniture Inc, a firm that helps website owners track their traffic, for $1.8 billion in 2009. Software that companies use to run digital marketing and advertising campaigns represented about $1.2 billion of Adobe’s $4.6 billion in revenue last year.

Microsoft has been trying to expand Dynamics, its software system for sales people. Teaming with Adobe helps it compete more strongly against Salesforce and Oracle, which both offer a combination of sales and marketing software.

 

Adobe has given up on software audits

Posted on August 12, 2016 by - News

Adobe Analysts working for Gartner have noticed that Adobe has abandoned its software audits.

Big G research director Stephen White blogged saying that the programmes were closed in the North America, Japan and Latin America markets since November 2015.

“Closure of the EMEA program (sic)  is currently underway; the company states it will maintain audit/compliance programming only in select markets throughout APAC,” he wrote.

Until recently, Adobe was also one of the top five most active auditing software publishers according to Gartner client surveys. However, the elimination of Adobe’s audit and licence compliance programme is not terribly surprising, considering the company’s aggressive conversion to SaaS subscriptions, and implementation of monitoring services including the Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Service.

White thinks this is a good thing, because it shows the company’s move to software-as-a-service has eased its piracy and counterfeiting problems to the extent that it doesn’t need to conduct audits any more.

With SaaS the outfit can see just what its customers are up to and fire off automated reminders of licensing obligations and take them to court if they ignore the request.

 

Salesforce demands Demandware

Posted on June 2, 2016 by - News

Salesforce_Logo_2009Cloudy Salesforce has written a $2.8 billion cheque for Demandware whose software is used by businesses to run e-commerce websites.

The move is part of a cunning plan to open a new front as Salesforce wants to take more market share from traditional software providers such as Oracle and SAP who offer cloud-based e-commerce services.

The e-commerce market has been growing  as retailers expand their online presence, boosting demand for software that helps manage functions such as payment processing and inventory management.

Salesforce appears to have paid rather a lot for the company to see off any of the other outfits which were bidding for the company. Word on the street is that Adobe and Oracle were also snuffling around.

Demandware has not been doing that well. Its shares, which have fallen about 21 percent in the past year. Its customers include Lands’ End, L’Oreal (because it is worth it) and Marks and Sparks. It has  reported sales growth of more than 30 percent for the last 10 quarters.

While Salesforce has beaten up everyone in the CRM war, it still needs to stay in front.  To do that it needs lots of products which is something it lacks.

Global spending on digital commerce platforms is expected to grow over 14 percent annually to about $8.5 billion by 2020, Salesforce.

The deal, slated to close in Salesforce’s second quarter ending July, is expected to increase the company’s 2017 revenue by about $100 million-$120 million.

Salesforce had forecast fiscal 2017 revenue of $8.16 billion-$8.20 billion in May.

 

Adobe’s cloudy subscription flowers

Posted on December 11, 2015 by - News

Cloud computing - photo Mike MageeAdobe’s cloud-based subscription model is doing wonders for its bottom line.

The outfit reported a profit that topped market expectations for the ninth straight quarter on strong subscriber growth for its Creative Cloud package of software tools, which includes Photoshop.

More than 833,000 subscribers signed up for Creative Cloud in the fourth quarter ended Nov. 27, more than the 678,200 additions analysts were expecting.

Creative Cloud includes graphic design tool Photoshop, web design software Dreamweaver and web video building application Flash, among other software.

Adobe, which has seen strong growth from Creative Cloud, has been nimble enough to attract users other than enterprises and professionals to the software suite.

More than half of its customers subscribe to the highest-priced full Creative Cloud while the rest subscribe to individual products. Photoshop Lightroom was the fastest growing.

Apparently this is because it is attracting new users from hobbyists and consumers and people that would never buy the Creative products before.

San Jose-based Adobe has been switching to web-based subscriptions from traditional licensed software to enjoy a more predictable recurring revenue stream.

Revenue from its digital media business, which houses Creative Cloud, jumped 35 percent to $875.3 million.

Revenue from its digital marketing business, which offers tools for businesses to analyze customer interactions and manage social media content, rose 2.3 percent to $382.7 million.

Total revenue rose to $1.31 billion.

Despite the 21.7 percent increase in fourth-quarter revenue only matching analysts’ estimates, a much lower 3.4 percent bump in total operating costs also helped Adobe’s profit beat estimates.

Adobe’s net income soared to $222.7 million, or 44 cents per share, in the quarter, from $88.1 million, or 17 cents per share, a year earlier.

 

Adobe and PageFair moan about adblocking

Posted on August 11, 2015 by - News

StoneWall-1Ad-blocking will lead to almost $22 billion of lost advertising revenue this year, according to a  report put together by Adobe and PageFair.

For those who came in late, PageFair is a Dublin-based start-up that helps companies and advertisers recoup some of this lost revenue.

If the pair’s figures are right, then the use of adblocking software has increased by 41 percent during the last year. Levels of ad-blocking activity now top more than a third of all internet users in some countries, particularly in Europe, the report said.

Gaming, social network and other tech-related websites were most affected by ad-blocking software, the report added.

While companies spend billions of dollars each year on these internet marketing efforts, analysts say people often overlook them while looking at online content.

Campbell Foster, director of product marketing at Adobe, said that what was causing grave concern for broadcasters and advertisers is video advertising, which is some of their most valuable content, is starting to be blocked. Whoopee, Campbell.

Almost 200 million people worldwide now regularly use ad-blocking software, the report said. About 45 million of them are in the United States, with almost 15 percent of people in states like New York and California relying on these services. The figures are even higher in Europe, where 77 million people use versions of the software. In Poland, more than a third of people regularly block online ads.

Recently, the focus on ad-blocking software has turned to mobile devices. Smartphones and other internet-connected devices are driving breakneck internet use, particularly in emerging markets, and the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system will allow people to download some form of ad-blocking software.

Currently, only a small fraction of ad-blocking comes from mobile devices, according to the Adobe/PageFair report. But analysts say developers are working on plug-ins for smartphone Web browsers that will allow people to block advertising on their mobiles and tablets.

 

Raiffeisen wants to sell Comparex

Posted on May 26, 2015 by - News

saleDespite the fact it is doing rather well, and even recently opened a branch in the US, the German Raiffesisen Bank wants to off-load Comparex.

The price could amount to EUR 350 million ($391 million) which strikes us as a little on the cheap side.

In 2013/14 the firm generated revenue of EUR 1.5 billion.

Comparex was established in 1986 as a joint venture of BASF and Siemens and specialises in licence management, software procurement and technical product consultation

Comparex is a large Microsoft licensing solutions partner (LSP) and also sells licences from Adobe, CA, Citrix, IBM, Symantec and VMware.

Raiffeisen has been the sole owner of Comparex since 2011 but the bank needs cash after a disastrous number of investments in Russia and Ukraine.

Patch that Flash!

Posted on January 23, 2015 by - News

wargames-hackerSoftware company Adobe released a security bulletin that patches its Flash Player.
The updates apply to Windows, to the Macintosh, and to the Linux operating system.
The security bulletin said that Adobe is aware of an exploit used in attacks against older versions of the Flash player.
Affected software includes the Flash Player Desktop Runtime, Flash Player for Linux, Flash Player for Google Chrome, and Flash Player for Internet Explorer 10 and Internet Explorer 11.
You can find details of what you need to do by going to this page. The patch itself won’t be available until next week, it seems.

Workers reject Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

courtroom_1_lgEmployees suing Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe over running a hiring cartel have asked an appeals court not to approve a $324.5 million settlement in the case.

Plaintiff workers accused Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe in a 2011 lawsuit of conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s employees. The companies agreed to a $324.5 million settlement earlier this year.

US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected the proposed class action settlement, saying the amount was too low. The companies appealed last month, saying she committed “clear legal errors”.

The workers said that although they believed the $324.5 million deal originally warranted approval, the judge had the proper authority to reject it and they would “defer to Koh’s sound judgment about how best to oversee this litigation”.

Tech employees alleged that the conspiracy limited their job mobility and, as a result, kept a lid on salaries. The case was interesting because it appeared to be another conspiracy organised by Steve Jobs.  Jobs also conspired with book publishers to keep the price of eBooks artificially high.

Plaintiffs based their allegations of conspiracy largely on emails circulated among Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs and former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt.

Koh repeatedly referred to a related deal last year involving Disney and Intuit. Apple and Google workers got proportionally less in the latest agreement compared with the one involving Disney, Koh said.

To match the earlier settlement, the latest deal “would need to total at least $380 million,” Koh said.

Adobe spies on Epub users

Posted on October 8, 2014 by - News

indians-010aAdobe has been spying on users  of Digital Editions 4, the newest version of its Epub app.

For some reason Adobe’s Epub app, seemed to be sending an lot of data to Adobe’s servers and hacker mates of the Digital Reader  have confirmed that Adobe is tracking users in the app and uploading the data to their servers.

Benjamin Daniel Mussler, the security researcher who found the security hole on Amazon.com, has also confirmed it to be true.

Adobe is gathering data on the ebooks that have been opened, which pages users read, and in what order. However, it gets worse. All of the data, including the title, publisher, and other metadata for the book is being sent to Adobe’s server in clear text to allow any spook, Chinese hacker, private eye, to hack into the stream and read it.

Just when you think Adobe could not be dumber, the outfit is not just tracking what users are doing in its own app; it is also scanning your computer and gathering the metadata from all of the ebooks sitting on your hard drive too. Once it has read every ebook it uploads that data to Adobe’s servers too.

Nate Hoffelder  the hack who found the breach described it as a “privacy and security breach so big that [he is] still trying to wrap my head around the technical aspects, much less the legal aspects.”

To be fair this kind of mistake is common as lots have been caught sending data in clear text, and others have been caught scraping data without permission. LG was caught in a very similar privacy violation last November when one of their Smart TVs was shown to be uploading metadata from a user’s private files to LG’s servers in clear text.

It is probably not deliberate, just what security experts technically call “bloody stupid”.

The  software has violated so many privacy laws in the US, goodness knows how many it will have broken in a civilised country like Germany where privacy is taken more seriously. The Frankfurt Book Fair is coming up later this week. Adobe will be exhibiting at the trade show so we guess that the Germans will be interrogating a few executive – that ways to make you talk, apparently.

 

Megacorps get the hard word

Posted on August 11, 2014 by - News

Judge-DreedA settlement between Apple, three other IT outfits and their employees has been rejected by a judge saying it was too low given the strength of the case against the employers.

Apple, Google, Intel  and Adobe failed to persuade  US District Judge Lucy Koh to sign off on a $324.5 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit by tech workers, who accused the firms of conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s employees.

Koh in San Jose, California, said there was “substantial and compelling evidence” that Apple Messiage founder Steve Jobs “was a, if not the, central figure in the alleged conspiracy,” Koh wrote

In their 2011 lawsuit, the tech employees said the conspiracy had limited their job mobility and, as a result, kept a lid on salaries. The case has been closely watched because of the possibility of big damages being awarded and for the opportunity to peek into the world of some of America’s elite tech outfits.

The whole case was based largely on emails in which Jobs and Google’s  Eric Schmidt hatched plans to avoid poaching each other’s prized engineers.

In rejecting the settlement, Koh referred to one email exchange which occurred after a Google recruiter solicited an Apple employee. Schmidt told Jobs that the recruiter would be fired. Jobs then forwarded Schmidt’s note to a top Apple human resources executive with a smiley face.

The four companies agreed to settle with the workers in April shortly before trial. The plaintiffs had planned to ask for about $3 billion in damages at trial, which could have tripled to $9 billion under antitrust law.

The plaintiffs are worried because workers faced serious risks on appeal had the case gone forward.

But Koh repeatedly referred to a related settlement last year involving Disney and Intuit. Apple and Google workers got proportionally less in the latest deal compared to the one involving Disney under the settlement.

To match the earlier settlement, the latest deal “would need to total at least $380 million,” Koh wrote.

A further hearing in the case is scheduled for September 10.