Adobe to Cut 600 Jobs

Adobe announced today that it is cutting 600 jobs, or about 8% of its global workforce. The company cited weaker-than-expected demand for its Creative Suite 4 products. Adobe employs about 7,600 people worldwide.

In a financial release issued today, the company says it expects its Q4 revenues to be between $912 million and $915 million, below its target of $925 million to $955 million. The company is forecasting first-quarter 2009 revenues of $800 million to $850 million.

Comments

[MarcW]

Obviously times are bad, but there's also the question of whether creative types are saturated. The upgrade cycle has been pretty fast, and while I'm sure somebody said the same thing about Photoshop 2, the question of the amount of the increased value between CS3 and CS4 arises. I only upgraded from CS2 to CS3 because I had to for technical reasons having to do with RAW compatibility: now that I import with Lightroom, I'll probably be keeping that up to date, but I don't know that I need CS4 or higher upgrades without some new killer feature. (And I don't know what killer features are left.) Add to that that people are slowing down on camera and computer upgrades, and the motivation to plunk down more money for Adobe upgrades is slipping.

[CD]

I have no plans to upgrade to CS4 or other Adobe Products.

It costs me bunch of coin to upgrade to CS3 from CS2 since all of my plug-ins refused to work properly or threw Photoshop into Rosetta in OS X. No thanks.

I do not use Camera Raw as my converter (I prefer Raw Developer or Capture One) and barely touch the surface of all that Photoshop has to offer. I recently purchased a 5D Mark II and PS CAMERA RAW in CS3 will not process the files. If a photographer plans to purchase this camera and they use PS as their converter, there is no choice but to purchase the upgrade.

I am sure the CS4 has loads of interesting new tools, but, I use very little of them and I feel that many photographers barely touch the surface on what is available in PS.

I know the next update of Lightroom will process the CR2 files from the 5D M II. As will Aperture in their next update.

[RichardP]

I hope Adobe is taking notice. Their software has lost the wow factor and has become more of a pain in the ass than its worth. I am currently stuck in this activation nonsense and cannot upgrade my software to CS3- which I own, cause I cant deactivate it on my old machine. I think we are going to start seeing small software publishers filling in the niches for applications we really need for a much better price.

[Aaron Lindberg]

Adobe seems to crank out updates just to make a profit. Anymore it seems that every 18 months they look for a new handout without a whole lot of improvement. A couple new bells and whistles added to their suite but it never seems to be completely overhauled as according to the price tag.
Sucks to see that a company cuts so many jobs, I wonder how many of those who lost their jobs were with Macromedia vs those who lost jobs that were with Adobe before the merger...