Mac software maker Adobe Wednesday announced it will eliminate 600 jobs as the company blames weak consumer demand and the U.S. recession for less-than-expected fourth quarter revenue.
The San Jose, Calif.-based firm projected it would earn between $912 million to $915 million for the quarter ended Nov. 28, far below the $930 million Wall Street expected. Adobe had earlier estimated revenue between $925 million to $955 million.
Weaker than expected demand for Adobe’s Creative Suite 4, released in October, was given as one reason for the shortfall.
“The global economic crisis significantly impacted our revenue during the fourth quarter,” Shantanu Narayen, Adobe president and CEO, said in a statement.
Adobe may have mined its Creative Suite dynasty to the point of consumers not seeing any benefit to upgrading, Gartner analyst Hai Hong Huang told Cult of Mac. CS3, when it launched in 2007, saw a 26 percent jump in users drawn to multiple new features introduced.
On Tuesday, Adobe announced it planned to curtail its presence at San Francisco’s Macworld 2009, scheduled for Jan. 5, 2009. The company said it had “decided to shift its focus” at the trade show away from exhibiting its products to purely educational. CS4 was expected to be one of Adobe’s new products displayed at the Macworld event.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
