Adobe Inc.

This article is about the software company. For the building material, see adobe.

Adobe Inc.
Adobe
FormerlyAdobe Systems Incorporated (1982–2018)
Company typePublic
IndustrySoftware
FoundedDecember 1982; 41 years ago (1982-12)
Mountain View, California, U.S.
Founders
HeadquartersAdobe World Headquarters,
San Jose, California
,
U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Products
ServicesSaaS
RevenueIncrease US$19.41 billion (2023)
Increase US$6.650 billion (2023)
Increase US$5.428 billion (2023)
Total assetsIncrease US$29.78 billion (2023)
Total equityIncrease US$16.52 billion (2023)
Number of employees
29,945 (2023)
Websiteadobe.com
Footnotes / references
Financials as of December 1, 2023.[1]

Adobe Inc. (/əˈdoʊbi/ ⓘ ə-DOH-bee), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to video/audio editing, mobile app development, print layout and animation software. It has historically specialized in software for the creation and publication of a wide range of content, including graphics, photography, illustration, animation, multimedia/video, motion pictures, and print. Its flagship products include Adobe Photoshop image editing software; Adobe Illustrator vector-based illustration software; Adobe Acrobat Reader and the Portable Document Format (PDF); and a host of tools primarily for audio-visual content creation, editing and publishing. Adobe offered a bundled solution of its products named Adobe Creative Suite, which evolved into a subscription software as a service (SaaS) offering named Adobe Creative Cloud.[2] The company also expanded into digital marketing software and in 2021 was considered one of the top global leaders in Customer Experience Management (CXM).[3]

Adobe was founded in December 1982[4] by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC to develop and sell the PostScript page description language. In 1985, Apple Computer licensed PostScript for use in its LaserWriter printers, which helped spark the desktop publishing revolution.[5] Adobe later developed animation and multimedia through its acquisition of Macromedia, from which it acquired Macromedia Flash; video editing and compositing software with Adobe Premiere, later known as Adobe Premiere Pro; low-code web development with Adobe Muse; and a suite of software for digital marketing management.

As of 2022, Adobe has more than 26,000 employees worldwide.[4] Adobe also has major development operations in the United States in Newton,[6] New York City, Arden Hills, Lehi, Seattle, Austin and San Francisco. It also has major development operations in Noida and Bangalore in India.[7] The company has long been the dominant tech firm in design and creative software,[8][9] despite attracting criticism for its policies and practices particularly around Adobe Creative Cloud's switch to subscription only pricing and its early termination fees for its most promoted Creative Cloud plan, the latter of which attracted a joint civil lawsuit from the US Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice in 2024.[10]

  1. ^ "Adobe Inc. 2023 Annual Report (Form 10-K)". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. January 17, 2024. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
  2. ^ Weber, Harrison (May 26, 2013). "Adobe Abandons Its Creative Suite to Focus on Creative Cloud". The Next Web. Retrieved July 8, 2014.
  3. ^ "The Forrester Wave™: Digital Experience Platforms, Q3 2021". July 21, 2021. Archived from the original on December 6, 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Adobe fast facts". 2021. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 26, 2009. Retrieved December 6, 2021.
  5. ^ Edwards, Benj (April 27, 2010). "Four reasons the LaserWriter mattered". MacWorld. Retrieved September 24, 2015.
  6. ^ Donnelly, Julie (September 17, 2013). "Adobe dumps gleaming Waltham digs at a $20M loss". Boston Business Journal. Retrieved May 17, 2017.
  7. ^ Khosla, Varuni (July 5, 2017). "India's best companies to work for 2017: Here's why interns love Adobe Systems". The Economic Times. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  8. ^ Tilley, Aaron (January 12, 2023). "How Adobe Became One of America's Most Valuable Tech Companies". The Wall Street Journal.
  9. ^ "The Secret of Adobe's Dominance Position in Design Software". envzone.com. October 24, 2020. Retrieved June 21, 2024.