Some excerpts:
How do you rate Indian software industry in the world market today? How important is the cost advantage that India enjoys, as the criteria for setting up development centres in India?
Software industry in India was known for its value proportion of cost earlier but global Y2K business gave us the opportunity to prove ourselves in technology and quality. And now, high value and high end technology development are being done in India.

For Adobe, the quality of Indian software engineers far outweighed the cost benefits. Though the cost of manpower is a business advantage in India, we value the quality of people more because Adobe India works on high end technologies and products development.

What spurred you to give such high ESOPs to your employees? If your motive was to retain quality IT professionals, why not make their salary levels commensurate with international levels as well?
The companies will have to compromise in cost if they want to develop and retain good quality professional. Adobe has decided to offer Employee Stock Options (ESOP) and project bonus to Indian employees equal to Adobe employees in the US. This converted in rupees will turn out to many times more then the salary they are getting. Such measures will also trigger the immigration of IT professionals back to India. It has become inevitable to offer equal opportunities and benefits for retaining good quality professionals. However, the salary can be kept low as compared to the US as the cost of living in India is also low but the perks and bonus should be equal as they contribute the same amount of efforts for the growth of the company. I think companies should make changes in their revenue model to pay more to the employees.

Don't you feel the crunch of high quality professional in India?
Yes. We should make efforts to push professional up to the value chain. There is an acute shortage of engineers to work in the higher segment of value chain. Though, there are enough people with the experience of 0-2 years in one technology, it is very difficult to have somebody with an experience on more than four years in one specific technology.

What new technologies and products is Adobe India working on?
We are developing two products, including Acrobat Reader for hand-held devices. The company is also working on technologies for integration of various Adobe products besides image compression technology.

What is the other product? I can not disclose it right now.
What is image compression? Image compression is a leading edge technology today. Adobe is working on image compression using Jpeg 2000 standards. The new technology will not require downloading of pictures on PC and hand-held devices for viewing. Instead, only a fraction of the total size will be bale to display the picture in a smaller format with less resolution. And, the size and resolution can be increased by downloading more from the source as per your requirements.