I met with Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, ten days ago – one week before the annual Adobe developer’s conference. He told me there’d be a lot of news about Adobe coming, and the company certainly delivered – in particular around mobile and Flash platform development.
But while the list of product and platform releases is impressive, it was Adobe’s earlier announcement of its acquisition of Omniture that got folks buzzing. From my point of view, this is one more step in Adobe becoming a central platform company in the Internet ecosystem.
With 800mm installs of Flash, the acquisition of Omniture, and a multi-device strategy, Adobe aims to become the industry standard in how marketers and media companies deliver experiences to audiences and customers. And while many still view the company as the provider of end user tools like Photoshop, the reality is that Adobe is in fact Microsoft’s most significant web platform competitor, which in turn makes it a significant competitor to Google in some areas (though the companies collaborate on key initiatives, like the Open Screen Project, for example, which is clearly as anti-Microsoft as they come). The difference, Narayen told me, is that Adobe does not have (nor does it plan to have) a media business, so it doesn’t compete with its partners.
I’m looking forward to our conversation, and I’d love your input on what you’d like to hear from Narayen.
Others we’ll be interviewing (and I’ve asked for your help):
To come: Aneesh Chopra, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Otellini, Tim Armstrong, Tim Berners Lee, and more. An amazing lineup and less than ten days away!
Also, remember to tweet your questions for any of the folks above with the #w2s hashtag for a chance to win a free Web 2 Summit pass – we’ll be picking three at random to win…
In light of Adobe adding voice-to-text functionality in the workflow of Flash video production and enhancing other video metadata tracking; what is Adobe’s position on facilitating the emerging Semantic Web?
Would be colorful to focus on the nexus of content and advertising. PPV models vs. advertising support, the role of privacy, or owning the data would all be fascinating vectors.
Looking forward to the discussion.
100% of all the folks “buzzing” about Omniture are completely baffled. Why not ask him why we are all so confused?
Doesn’t the acquisition of Omniture present serious privacy problems, particularly since Flash cookies are now used for online tracking? How does adobe guarantee separation of Omniture client data from Adobe marketing data?
Do you see Adobe as a future online ad network?
Adobe work with Google to build Google Chrome OS?
John
Thanks for asking both of my questions, although I think you let him off the hook a bit in the privacy arena.
John
Thanks for asking both of my questions, although I think you let him off the hook a bit in the privacy arena.