Adobe: Future, Present and the Past
Founded in the year 1982 in a garage to now making revenues of 11.17 billion dollars. Adobe has come a long way and still reigning successfully. Adobe, an affordable service offerer has stuck far so long than any. With their suite of apps and programs. Adobe has managed to keep inventing and also made sure to match the walk with the pace of the world and keeps listening to the creators and independent creators to offer profound solutions and to enable them to do more.
2008 Recession
Shantanu Narayen became the CEO in the year 2007, and the following year the world faced a crisis together — A recession!
Mr.Narayen had challenges ahead of him; many giants were consumed to dust by this recession, and Adobe was still growing to become a mammoth. Mr.Narayen’s management skill was strong. He made the use of their apps and programs easier to afford by converting the licensing model into a subscription model. Creators preferred the suite of apps offered in a subscription model more affordable than the licensed one. It not only paved the way for other industries to adopt this model but also made it easier for the business to grow.
Mr.Narayen also adopted the future and thought through the present and embraced the cloud services early on than many. With the cloud benefits offered to consumers along with the bundle, creators of all kinds were of praise as it allowed the flexibility to continue their project on any device at any time.
Service! Service! Service!
Adobe could be told as one of the largest services offering companies, and constantly enabling the creator to create an impact, and also constantly listening and innovating.
Before the year 2007, with every new iteration of the software, people had to pay a hefty licensing fee to own the program. After Adobe adopted the subscription model, it was more relaxing on the wallet of many lovers of Adobe programs.
The subscription model also benefited both Adobe and the consumer as it made the pirated copies to be impracticable to adopt in the new age. Pirated copies are notorious for having some kind of malware or virus, and it affected many PCs that had these copies installed on, so consumers preferred shelling some cash and downloading the original copy instead of downloading copies infected with viruses, and malware.
Unlike in the past, If there is a new iteration of the software in a subscription model, Adobe automatically updates your program at no charge and this is a win-win and attractive feature for many creatives.
Flash and Post-Flash
The most controversial product of Adobe — Flash!
Flash had come into the spotlight of scrutinization mainly — when smartphones started booming. Many android developers also had flash installed in them. But Apple refused to be bogged down and voiced out its flaws, uselessness, and questioned its use in the modern-day world.
Apple had many great partnerships with Adobe for many years and continues to do so. Adobe was an exclusive partner to Apple and was offering photoshop and many other products only on Apple Macs exclusively, before the split.
Apple always had an interesting and most friendly relationship with Adobe.
Adobe’s favorite child Flash suffered tremendous criticism for its security features. Many web browsers dropped Adobe flash player support after they found the issues with it.
On Dec 31 2020 the world will lose Flash player support forever.
The Future of Adobe
If one had to guess, Adobe is like a turtle in the race, and they do not have anything substantial in their possession. All they are is a software company and have software tools to provide — which they offer to any media or web creators. While others should often innovate at a much faster speed and keep innovating new tech for the world and for their stocks to grow. Adobe does not necessarily have to keep stressing over this like others. With that said, they surely have competitors rising against them to dethrone. Providing similar programs that are superior for free of cost or charging substantially a low fee than Adobe.
While Adobe was the preferred choice by people all these years for their needs — despite high licensing fees. Adobe is now seeing the rise of many similar offerers whose product is sometimes far more innovative, advanced, and easy to use. They are also more affordable or sometimes free to use. If Adobe wants to extend its life and not get eaten by the competition, they have to win the consumers back and bring down their monthly fees to use their programs, offer perks, and much more.
