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| '''Adobe Systems''' is a ] ] company. | '''Adobe Systems''' is a ] ] company. | ||
| Adobe Systems is a publicly traded American company founded |
Adobe Systems is a publicly traded American company founded in 1982 by ] and ] after they left ] to further develop and commercialize the ] page description language, which ] subsequently licenced for use in their ] ] product line in 1985. The company name comes from the Adobe Creek which ran near the company's original offices in Mountain View, California. The headquarters of the company are located in ], ]. There are about 3400 employees working for Adobe (]). | ||
| Adobe soon after entered the consumer ] market by introducing ]™, a vector-based drawing program for the ]. This was the logical outgrowth of commercializing their in-house font-development software and to help popularize the use of ]s. Unlike MacDraw (the standard vector-based drawing program for the Mac), Illustrator described all shapes with the more flexible ] curve, and provided a level of accuracy sorely missing. Font rendering in Illustrator, however, was left to the Macintosh's QuickDraw routines and would not be superseded by a PostScript-like approach until Adobe's own ATM (]) and Apple's eventual adoption of ]. | Adobe soon after entered the consumer ] market by introducing ]™, a vector-based drawing program for the ]. This was the logical outgrowth of commercializing their in-house font-development software and to help popularize the use of ]s. Unlike MacDraw (the standard vector-based drawing program for the Mac), Illustrator described all shapes with the more flexible ] curve, and provided a level of accuracy sorely missing. Font rendering in Illustrator, however, was left to the Macintosh's QuickDraw routines and would not be superseded by a PostScript-like approach until Adobe's own ATM (]) and Apple's eventual adoption of ]. | ||
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| History has been kind, however. Since it always had PostScript interpreter licencing to fall back on, Adobe simply outlasted its rivals and eventually bought them out or, like ], kept improving its applications until they met or exceeded the competition's. For reasons unknown, Corel never leveraged their Draw product to do professional illustration—users quietly derided it as something only office users would touch—so when Illustrator was finally revamped for Windows, prepress users found it too good to ignore. Corel's interest in acquiring ] from ] at the same time may have proved to be a key distraction. | History has been kind, however. Since it always had PostScript interpreter licencing to fall back on, Adobe simply outlasted its rivals and eventually bought them out or, like ], kept improving its applications until they met or exceeded the competition's. For reasons unknown, Corel never leveraged their Draw product to do professional illustration—users quietly derided it as something only office users would touch—so when Illustrator was finally revamped for Windows, prepress users found it too good to ignore. Corel's interest in acquiring ] from ] at the same time may have proved to be a key distraction. | ||
| Adobe's reputation (for better or worse) unfortunately includes a common perception of over- |
Adobe's reputation (for better or worse) unfortunately includes a common perception of over-aggressiveness. This started with their practice of encrypting their high-quality Type 1 fonts, and not releasing the Type 1 specification, and charging what many felt were overly-high prices for fonts and PostScript interpreter licences. When font format standards forked with the introduction of TrueType from Apple and Microsoft, Adobe released the Type 1 font specification and introduced "Adobe Type Manager" software, which allowed for ] scaling of Type 1 fonts on screen, just like TrueType. | ||
| But perhaps the most damaging incident was the ]'s arrest of ] for what it said was a violation of the ]. Sklyarov was arrested ], ] at the ] conference in Las Vegas, NV, apparently at the behest of Adobe Systems, according to a DOJ complaint, and is charged with distributing a product designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. Sklyarov helped create the Advanced eBook Processor (AEBPR) software for his Russian employer ]. | But perhaps the most damaging incident was the ]'s arrest of ] for what it said was a violation of the ]. Sklyarov was arrested ], ] at the ] conference in Las Vegas, NV, apparently at the behest of Adobe Systems, according to a DOJ complaint, and is charged with distributing a product designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. Sklyarov helped create the Advanced eBook Processor (AEBPR) software for his Russian employer ]. | ||
| Adobe's latest efforts are mainly centered on ]. Although sales of their ] product (which is a PDF file generator) |
Adobe's latest efforts are mainly centered on ]. Although sales of their ] product (which is a PDF file generator) were slow to start in the mid-90s, Adobe kept with the product, perceiving long-term revenue potential, which has since panned out. There are also ancilliary benefits, such as providing a common, high-quality data exchange infrastructure for their publishing applications. | ||
| Adobe's first retail product (the PostScript language doesn't count, since it is licensed to manufacturers, not sold to end users) was digital ]. In 1996, the company announced the ] font format, jointly with Microsoft, and in 2002-03 Adobe completed the conversion of its library of Type 1 fonts to the new format. | |||
| ==Products== | ==Products== | ||
Revision as of 07:55, 11 March 2003
Adobe Systems is a computer software company.
Adobe Systems is a publicly traded American company founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles M. Geschke after they left Xerox to further develop and commercialize the PostScript page description language, which Apple Computer subsequently licenced for use in their LaserWriter printer product line in 1985. The company name comes from the Adobe Creek which ran near the company's original offices in Mountain View, California. The headquarters of the company are located in San Jose, California. There are about 3400 employees working for Adobe (2002).
Adobe soon after entered the consumer software market by introducing Adobe Illustrator™, a vector-based drawing program for the Apple Macintosh. This was the logical outgrowth of commercializing their in-house font-development software and to help popularize the use of laser printers. Unlike MacDraw (the standard vector-based drawing program for the Mac), Illustrator described all shapes with the more flexible Bezier curve, and provided a level of accuracy sorely missing. Font rendering in Illustrator, however, was left to the Macintosh's QuickDraw routines and would not be superseded by a PostScript-like approach until Adobe's own ATM (Adobe Type Manager) and Apple's eventual adoption of TrueType.
Although Illustrator was an excellent product (still) highly valued by the prepress industry, Adobe eventually hit its stride with the introduction of Adobe Photoshop for the Macintosh in 1989. Although there were competitors, Photoshop 1.0 was extremely stable, well-featured, and of course came from a major player that could afford to market it professionally. It was a combination that soon eclipsed all else.
If Adobe made any mistakes with the Macintosh, it might have been their missing the opportunity to develop their own publishing program. This was done instead by Aldus (which released PageMaker) and later Quark (which released QuarkXPress). Adobe was also too late to address the emerging Windows DTP market, and thus let Corel Corp. dominate it with Corel Draw. In a classic failure to predict the direction of computing, Adobe released Illustrator for Steve Jobs' ill-fated NeXT computer but a far-too-featureless version for Windows.
History has been kind, however. Since it always had PostScript interpreter licencing to fall back on, Adobe simply outlasted its rivals and eventually bought them out or, like Microsoft, kept improving its applications until they met or exceeded the competition's. For reasons unknown, Corel never leveraged their Draw product to do professional illustration—users quietly derided it as something only office users would touch—so when Illustrator was finally revamped for Windows, prepress users found it too good to ignore. Corel's interest in acquiring WordPerfect from Novell Corp. at the same time may have proved to be a key distraction.
Adobe's reputation (for better or worse) unfortunately includes a common perception of over-aggressiveness. This started with their practice of encrypting their high-quality Type 1 fonts, and not releasing the Type 1 specification, and charging what many felt were overly-high prices for fonts and PostScript interpreter licences. When font format standards forked with the introduction of TrueType from Apple and Microsoft, Adobe released the Type 1 font specification and introduced "Adobe Type Manager" software, which allowed for WYSIWYG scaling of Type 1 fonts on screen, just like TrueType.
But perhaps the most damaging incident was the FBI's arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov for what it said was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Sklyarov was arrested July 17, 2001 at the Def Con conference in Las Vegas, NV, apparently at the behest of Adobe Systems, according to a DOJ complaint, and is charged with distributing a product designed to circumvent copyright protection measures. Sklyarov helped create the Advanced eBook Processor (AEBPR) software for his Russian employer Elcomsoft.
Adobe's latest efforts are mainly centered on Portable Document Format. Although sales of their Acrobat product (which is a PDF file generator) were slow to start in the mid-90s, Adobe kept with the product, perceiving long-term revenue potential, which has since panned out. There are also ancilliary benefits, such as providing a common, high-quality data exchange infrastructure for their publishing applications.
Adobe's first retail product (the PostScript language doesn't count, since it is licensed to manufacturers, not sold to end users) was digital fonts. In 1996, the company announced the OpenType font format, jointly with Microsoft, and in 2002-03 Adobe completed the conversion of its library of Type 1 fonts to the new format.
Products
Financial information
Adobe Systems entered in 1986 in Nasdaq. It has a market capitalisation of US$6.176 billion (February 2003) and shares are traded at about US$26.5 (February 2003). It revenues are of about US$1.2 billion (2002)
See Also: Photoshop, PDF, PostScript
External link
- Adobe's web-site is at http://www.adobe.com