Tag: Adobe

Apple faces class action for treating employees badly

Posted on July 24, 2014 by - News

oliverFour former retail and corporate Apple employees who filed a lawsuit against the over  labour violations managed to “upgrade” their lawsuit to class-action status.

The status was awarded because it was believed that more than 20,000 current and former Apple employees were harmed by Apple’s management antics.

The four people who originally filed the suit had different experiences with Apple, saying the company violated California’s Labour Code and Wage Orders with its actions. These included making people work long hours without a break and receiving their paycheques late.

It has taken years to get the case to court as Apple has been fighting tooth and nail with voluminous briefing and lengthy oral arguments.

In the end however the California Superior Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion and certified the case as a class action, appointing Plaintiffs and Plaintiffs’ counsel (Hogue & Belong) as the class representatives and class counsel on behalf of approximately 20,000 Apple employees.

Apple now faces claims of meal period, rest period and final pay violations affecting approximately 20,000 current and former Apple employees, rather than just four.

It is not clear how much cash this is going to cost Apple if it is found guilty as no financial demand has been made in the case.

It has been a bad time for Apple lately which has just been told by a court that its long-standing policy of locking in staff using no-poaching agreements with other companies was illegal.

Apple alongside co-conspirators Google, Intel and Adobe agreed to settle for $324 million with the tech workers who filed the class action.

Samsung expands hardware channel

Posted on February 19, 2014 by - News

Samsung rules the roostKorean giant Samsung said it will work with NAPPS  to grow its MPS and print hardware channel. NAPPS members include Adobe, Docuware, Kyocera and Xerox.

It’s the certification body for the UK document management business.

Samsung joins a number of Managed Document Services (MDS) organisations which, it says, work together to ensure good service and best practice.

According to Mark Ash, who is the UK general manager in print a Samsung UK, his company pledges to give all of its resellers good technology, tools and services.

”Giving our dealers the opportunity to join us as part of NAPPS is just another way for Samsung to strengthen our dealers’ performance,” he said. “MPS remains a key strategic growth area for us in 2014 and we will continue the significant investment programme that was started in 2013 with further increases in people, processes and technology.”

He said that Samsung is rapidly expanding its indirect channel. “New dealers are signing up on a weekly basis.”

Adobe buys digital marketing firm

Posted on June 28, 2013 by - News

cloud (264 x 264)Adobe has written a cheque for Neolane, a software company which allows for managing digital marketing campaigns over multiple platforms.

It is believed the deal cost Adobe $600 million and is part of the company’s bid to bring cross-channel campaign management to the Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Adobe Marketing Cloud is a set of tools encompassing analytics, social, advertising, targeting, and web management.  Neolane has been tried and tested at Barnes & Noble and Bridgestone Tires.  It means that clients get a software platform for automatic web campaigns.

Adobe said the acquisition, expected to close next month, will not materially affect its revenue forecast and adjusted financial results for the current fiscal year.

According to Forbes, Neolane CEO Stéphane Dehoche will continue to lead the former Neolane team as part of Adobe’s digital marketing business.

The move means we can expect to see Adobe more heavily pushing its cloud offerings, backed by its software rental model, in the next few months.

Gerry Brown, senior analyst at Ovum, said that Adobe desperately needed a good  campaign management platform as a lack of one had been “a glaring hole in its digital marketing platform proposition”.

At more than ten times what Neolane earned, the cost of the deal was steep for Adobe. But Brown said it was worth it because it could propel Adobe into the market leadership.

He thinks that the catalyst for this acquisition was Salesforce.com’s recent $2.5 billion purchase of Exact Target.  Adobe had wanted to get its paws on Exact Target and Eloqua but did not manage it,

“Adobe was likely compelled to act before all the their campaign management best-of-breed vendor acquisition options evaporated,” Brown said.

Adobe and Sapient expand their partnership

Posted on April 24, 2013 by - News

RembrandtSapient Nitro – a division of Sapient – and Adobe have expanded their offerings by integrating the EngagedNow platform with Adobe’s Marketing Cloud.

The idea is to spread the offerings across web, social networking, mobile phones and digital displays, Adobe said.

EngagedNow, according to Alan Herrick, CEO of Sapient, is create multi-channel offerings without having to design and develop the back end infrastructure.

What this means is that the two firms offer hosted and managed services using Adobe Marketing Cloud with Sapient’s EngagedNow. The companies will build integrated offerings for vertical markets including travel, sports, entertainment, retail and financial services.

The worldwide partnership was announced at a conference held by Adobe in London, today.

Big Tech taken to task Down Under

Posted on February 11, 2013 by - News

strayaTop tech companies are being called to task by an Australian committee that argues the country is getting a raw deal by unfair price discrimination.

Aussie MP Ed Husic moaned to the Australian that by some estimates, prices for Australia can be 60 percent more than in the States. He and the committee will be putting Apple, Microsoft and Adobe on 22 March, according to the BBC. Although the firms have replied in writing, until now they have not bothered to meet any representatives in person.

Although price differences aren’t as drastic in the USA and the UK, there is still a gap – with the only difference usually being in pound sterling rather than the dollar. Depending on what action the committee takes, there is the potential to set the bar on international price differences, and whether they should be altered in line with currency values.

Husic told the Australian that, considering IT is so widely used in both business and consumer segments, prices for hardware and software can “have a major commercial and economic impact”. He said that bringing IT prices down and “easing the bite of price discrimination” should be an “important micro-economic priority”. Of course, convincing conglomerates that tinkering with their margins is a good idea will be easier said than done.

The bigger picture, however, will be that if pricing is more competitive, consumers and businesses won’t hesitates as much to buy – even in challenging economic conditions.