back to article Adobe expects disappointing Q1 sales

Adobe Systems warned late yesterday that its first quarter revenue would undershoot analyst expectations but added earnings would meet the company’s forecasts. The software maker said in a prelim statement that it now expects to see revenue of $783m to $786m for Q1. It had originally targeted $800m to $850m in sales for the …

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  1. Andrij

    no wonder!

    Since the Macromedia purchase it's all gone a bit Pete Tong hasn't it? They'd do better if they stopped all this design/production/master suite bollocks and get back to selling individual apps at a lower cost. They should start selling more then. Why should I buy or upgrade to Production or master suite just because I'd like to buy Encore??? I already have PS, illustrator, After Effects, Flash, Director, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, InDesign. Why do I need to purchase them all again? And as for Premiere, I just don't need it with having an Avid and Final Cut Studio. But I'll have to If i fancy using Encore. I'm sure many Adobe customers are in the same situation.

  2. Adrian Waterworth
    Flame

    It's 'cos they're very, very stupid...

    The reason that Adobe aren't flogging as much software as they expected is partly due to the economy, but mainly because their pricing and volume licensing arrangements SUCK!

    First off, upgrading a PC or Mac from CS2 or CS3 to CS4 (Design Premium)? 600 quid a seat here in the UK. Probably around 600 dollars (I'm guessing) in the US. Nowadays, that's probably more than it will cost for a good enough PC to run the damned thing on. Meanwhile, if you're a student, you can buy the full version of CS4 DP for 250 quid.

    Similarly, want a copy of CS4 Design Standard? Thousand smackers please. Or 160 quid if you're eligible for the student version. Isn't this just the equivalent of a drug dealer giving their customers the first couple of hits free or on the cheap?

    But the best bit - the very, very best bit - is that I phoned Adobe the other week. Now, we're not a big outfit by any means, but I was looking at a couple of Design Premium upgrades and a couple of Design Standard licenses. OK, not a huge install base, but I would have thought it was enough to get some kind of deal (especially since it included the software upgrade option). You know what they said? Oh no, even though you've got several thousand qualifying points for our commercial volume license programme, you still wouldn't get it any cheaper. In fact, it would be cheaper just to go out and buy the retail boxed versions.

    In which bizarre world does that make any kind of sense? If I do that, it will cost me more for a few Adobe upgrades and licenses than it recently cost me for half a dozen new desktops - all with a fairly passable spec, three year onsite warranties and copies of MS Office pre-installed! What the...?

    Anyone know whether the Adobe stuff is the most pirated software in the world? If it is, now you know why. As for us, we're sticking with the licenses/versions we've already got and the folks who were going to get the new copies will just have to live without for now - I'm not dropping that kind of cash into Adobe's gaping maw today.

    Anyone know of an alternative product that runs on Windows and can do everything that the full CS2/3/4 suites can do (including the integration and functionality like Bridge)? I've been looking for a while and haven't found anything suitable yet, but if I ever do, I'll take the greatest pleasure in telling Adobe to stick their software right up their bum. Sods.

  3. Joey
    Thumb Down

    No surprises there then...

    Adobe should sack their interface design team and get the cleaners and tea ladies to do it in their spare time - for biscuits. The current mess that is the Creative Suite GUI is enough to put anyone off buying their products!

  4. Liam
    Thumb Down

    as said before...

    why is the english version double the price of the US version. i enquired and was told it was for my language pack?!!?! but all the menus are in Americanese so wtf are they on about?

    also bugs dont get fixed... i still cant FTP files larger than 5Mb with Dreamweaver! yet a free FTP client works fine!

    i wont be upgrading for a while! im on CS3 here... we bought the £1600 master suite and its been rarely used apart from photoshop (which does rock to be honest) and DW... but DW is now mainly used for php app development, which is not brilliant, as very few features are catered for.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    What do you expect?

    Adobe remains in thrall to the Anglo-Saxon model Capitalism that gave us the credit crunch. Whatever ideals it started out with - and let us allow that it must, once upon a time, have had some - Adobe's sole reason for existence has become the identification of any and every 'monetizing (sic) opportunity'. The ruthless and exploitative gouging of its user-base is accompanied by forms of bureaucratic/corporate paranoia that would make a neo-Stalinist blush. Adobe now exemplifies the worst of both systems. its symptomatic of the company's decline that, having witnessed the kicking away of the pedestal upon which our political leaders once placed the banks, Adobe can imagine no more creative strategy that to emulate them. And by the way, don't hang on to those old apps. for too long, or you'll find yourselves in the same boat as me, with Adobe demanding that I purchase them all over again – for the third time! I disrespectfully declined.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    What do you expect?

    Adobe remains in thrall to the Anglo-Saxon model Capitalism that gave us the credit crunch. Whatever ideals it started out with - and let us allow that it must, once upon a time, have had some - Adobe's sole reason for existence has become the identification of any and every 'monetizing (sic) opportunity'. The ruthless and exploitative gouging of its user-base is accompanied by forms of bureaucratic/corporate paranoia that would make a neo-Stalinist blush. Adobe now exemplifies the worst of both systems. its symptomatic of the company's decline that, having witness the kicking away of the pedestal upon which our political leaders once placed the banks,, Adobe can imagine no more creative strategy that to emulate them. And by the way, don't hang on to those old apps. for too long, or you'll find yourselves in the same boat as me, with Adobe demanding that I purchase them all over again – for the third time! I disrespectfully declined.

  7. Dave
    Thumb Down

    I've said it before, so I'll say it again...

    ...Adobe products are TOO DAMN EXPENSIVE!!!

    And what is it with the installation size too? Even a lonely Fireworks CS4 requires 1GB or more of HDD space. And of course in CS4 they changed the interface around and CS3 has issues with Vista that have not been fixed - particularly Fireworks that has render glitches (upgrade to CS4 to get it fixed!! - um, no Adobe). *grrrr*

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @ Adrian Waterworth

    >Anyone know whether the Adobe stuff is the most pirated software in the world?

    It's probably up there in the top 3

    >If it is, now you know why. As for us, we're sticking with the licenses/versions

    >we've already got and the folks who were going to get the new copies will just

    >have to live without for now - I'm not dropping that kind of cash into Adobe's

    >gaping maw today.

    Ah.. Well there you go.. It's a double edged sword.. people don't want to pay for 'expensive' software so they pirate it.. which means the people who do buy it have to put up with higher prices thanks to those who rip it off for free... But those same people would pirate it even if it was £10...

  9. Adrian Waterworth
    Unhappy

    @AC 16:07

    Exactly - it's a royal pain in the derriere.

    On the one hand, it would be useful to have a couple of CS Standard licenses to run alongside our existing Premium ones. But it's not vital and - given the utterly ridiculous pricing - we can get along without them. If it was two or three (or even four?) hundred quid a license, I'd probably be able to find some budget somewhere and get a copy or two, but at a grand a seat they can just go and take a flying one for the time being.

    Regardless of the piracy issues (and you're right - the people who pirate it will probably continue to do so regardless of cost), they've got to realise that they may well end up getting more revenue if they reduce the price but manage to sell a lot more legitimate copies as a result.

    And others have already mentioned the ridiculous US-UK price discrepancies, so I won't even go there...

  10. MarcW
    Thumb Down

    Global recession - high prices = surprise?

    Since the absorption of Macromedia into the fold and the iniquitous bundling of products Adobe has become one of the most price inflated product sets on the market. While it is possible to purchase single products it has become prohibitively expensive to do so. If this price reflected a world class customer service and prompt bug-fixing then I could understand it but this hasn't been the case. The long standing arguments over global price differentials is still raging with lots of words spoken but very little said.

    Maybe now the heads of the departments there (especially Marketing and Finance) can be awoken roughly and attempt to remove the laurel indentations from their faces and wake up to the fact that people are just not going to pay those prices any more, especially if they don't fix product problems in a timely fashion.

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