Adobe Systems Incorporated

Key Facts

• Products operate on all major platforms, from Windows to Mac to Unix to Linux to others.
• Ranked 13th on Fortune’s 2005 list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For,” citing perks like its bocce ball courts, on-site farmer’s market, and the large number of private offices for employees.
• Adobe continues to set the standard for graphic manipulation software; combined with Macromedia, the company is likely to dominate the industry for the foreseeable future.

Key Financial Facts
2004 revenue: $1,666.6 million
1-yr. growth rate: 28.7 percent

Personnel Highlights
Number of employees: 3,142
1-yr. growth rate: –10.4 percent

Company Overview
Adobe is best known for its suite of software products that provide tools for manipulating digital photos, graphics, and illustrations. Photoshop and Illustrator have helped revolutionize design in general, while Premiere has played a major role in digital video production. Other products such as GoLive have made building websites much simpler.

Adobe has altered the landscape of education by producing tools that have made physical and online design much more accessible and powerful. And the company markets its products aggressively to the education market. That’s because Adobe wants everyone—not just professional designers—to use their products. Adobe is also promoting Adobe Acrobat, the software that creates PDFs, and the PDF format as a medium for information exchange in educational settings. Will students one day turn in their papers as PDFs? Adobe hopes so.

April of 2005 saw the announcement of a merger between Adobe and Macromedia, the maker of Flash.