Adobe shuts down for a week

June 30, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments |

jet_adobe_officeThe San Jose Mercury News reports that Adobe Systems, maker of the Flash player used for most Web video clips, has shut down its North American operations for the week as a cost-cutting move.

The move is striking because Adobe is, by most metrics, successful. In addition to Flash, Adobe now develops and sells many of the most popular software tools used by graphic designers and website builders: Acrobat, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and several others. The company is profitable, although sales have been lower than planned. Second-quarter income dropped 41 percent to $126 million. CNET reported earlier this month that sales of the company’s flagship product Creative Suite 4, some versions of which sell for $1,500 at Amazon, have been soft due to the current recession.

The shutdown is one of three planned for this year, following a layoff last December of 600 of the company’s 7,400 workers around the world. (Adobe has since hired another 260 employees in lower-cost locations outside the U.S.)

The first shutdown was in April, the third not yet announced. During the first shutdown, chief financial officer Mark Garrett told Bloomberg that the company had also frozen salaries, reduced bonuses, and cut back on travel expenses.

[Photo from junglecode.net by Daniel Sofer]

Next Story: Firefox 3.5 takes you back to a time before browser add-ons
Previous Story: Latest speakers at MobileBeat: Steve Boom and Sam Altman

Bookmark and Share

Tags:

Photo of Paul Boutin

About the Author, Paul Boutin

Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Wow, that is surprising. I hope everything turns around for adobe, they make great products.
  • sanjaysharma
    Adobe's leverage is slowly eroding, and is under fire from multiple directions. Time to bail.
  • $1,500 is expensive these days for any package; it's written here as if it were chump change.
  • lukeofman
    Adobe also makes some disappointing products. I use Flash CS4 everyday and while I wouldn't say it's a complete failure, it certainly deserves to be called disappointing and beta quality when it comes to stability. When companies rest on their laurels too much, it just opens up the market to some upstart to fill the niche.