Mark,
We follow Adobe but we also follow may other companies that coexist with and even compete with Adobe. And this DD Associates guy seems to be or has someone in his group that seems to know their stuff on Adobe and the market for Web graphic tools. We certainly have done our DD on a number of smaller players and yes, one of them includes THW. Adobe should acquire them before Quark does.
Changes are happening, whether we like it or not. The Internet has leveled the playing field and Adobe is feeling the effects of what smaller companies can do to Adobe's once sacred market.
Adobe has definitely got a few investors pissed with blaming things on weak sales because of Apple and the economy in Asia. As you mentioned, they can't do it over and over with Apple selling tons of iMacs. According to a recent story in MacWeek from the Seybold Conference, Macromedia claimed that their sales were up considerably this quarter because of Apple's renewed growth. Why Macromedia and others, but not Adobe? Why?
Somebody was asleep at the switch. Let's stay away from Apple, they have a deadly cancer. I think not.
Simple? Bloatware as they call it and cannibalization of the CASH COW Adobe Photoshop. Many small companies are developing and making great graphic design tools available to a market through the Internet. Adobe spent so much time trying to distance themselves from the failing Apple that they went left instead of sticking with Apple a little longer. The Mac is the graphics tool of choice and loyal Apple fans are getting a little fed up with Adobe blaming Apple all the time for their poor performance.
Photoshop is still king in this market, but Adobe is killing the Golden Goose by laying too many eggs.
ImageReady, ImageStyler, what else? Why not put ImageStyler and ImageReady into one product? Why confuse the audience? Why get Photoshop users pissed?
The answer is that they have finally hit a growth wall on the number of Photoshop users and now they need to tap this audience with new products. It happened to Corel with CorelDraw, and Corel is so seriously floundering that they hit $1.60 from $29.50. I don't think this will happen to Adobe, but one should start paying attention to these smaller players. Undercutting Adobe with easier to use, less memory intensive products will only cause Adobe more problems.
It is a well known fact that Photoshop is starting to get some serious competition and sales and confusion is only going to work against Adobe in this fickle market. Add value to Photoshop, don't kill the Golden Goose. I still believe the new Adobe management team will prevail. They just need to focus.
Jerry Fisby
VentureCap |
