‘Growth will come from internet on mobile’

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‘People still prefer piracy to paying for world ci...

: Adobe seems to be banking on creativity to sail out of recession and stand out from the crowd. Revenue targets might prove to be a struggle, but the company is working hard to identify new growth markets. And India offers a land of opportunities, according to Abode Asia Pacific head of Creative Professions platform, Michael Stoddart. In an interaction with Aseem Thapliyal, Stoddart narrates the company’s long-term strategies and gives an insight into the Web market which is moving deeper into mobile phones . Excerpts:

How have Web 2.0 and blogs affected product profile of Adobe?

The rise of blogs, Web 2.0 and services like Twitter gets us the immediate feedback of the customers. It is another medium for our clients to communicate with their customers.

Content for Facebook is created by using our tools. We have a website called labs.adobe.com where our customers can go and download the software we have been working on and which has not been released. We are a much more open company due to the effect of social media.

How do you plan to tackle the problem of piracy?

We have always had a long-term approach to piracy. We have an entire team which has been working with local bodies to carry out enforcement actions. In India, during the last six months, we have done about 25 enforcement actions on various companies across segments. Though our objective is to educate people and encourage them to buy legal software, we adopt a strict approach against anyone who indulges in piracy of our products.

In 2005, you acquired a company called Macromedia. How far has the integration of Adobe’s products been successful with that of the company?

Many people in the beginning thought that the two companies coming together will not work. A lot of large mergers tend to fail. The two companies worked very hard at it. Adobe is a much better company as a result of that. For example, the Flash technology that is the Macromedia technology is now in all of our products. We put Flash into our products and our products went out to Flash and others. Macromedia opened up Adobe. It also helped us to become an open-minded and a forward-thinking company and we have become a major player in leading Web 2.0 technology. So it has been very successful both at the strategic and technological level.