Adobe 2012 Annual Report Download - page 33

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as lower-end desktop publishing products such as Microsoft Word. Competition is based on the quality and features of products,
the level of customization and integration with other publishing system components, the number of hardware platforms supported,
service and price. We believe we can successfully compete based upon the quality and features of the FrameMaker product and
our extensive application programming interface.
In desktop publishing, our Adobe PageMaker product faces competition from other software products, including Microsoft
Publisher. Competition is based on the quality and features of products, ease-of-use, printer service support and price. We believe
we have a strong product and can successfully compete with these types of applications based upon the quality and features of
the PageMaker product, its strong brand among users and its widespread adoption among printer service bureaus.
In printing technologies, we believe the principal competitive factors for OEMs in selecting a page description language
or a printing technology are product capabilities, market leadership, reliability, price, support and engineering development
assistance. We believe that our competitive advantages include our technology competency, OEM customer relationships and our
intellectual property portfolio. Adobe PostScript faces competition from Hewlett-Packard's proprietary PCL page description
language and from developers of other page description languages based on the PostScript language standard, including Global
Graphics and Zoran. In addition, Microsoft's XPS document format and Autodesk's DWG format compete with Adobe PDF and
our PostScript technologies and solutions.
In the eLearning authoring market, our Adobe eLearning Suite and our Adobe Captivate product face competition from
general content development tools such as Microsoft PowerPoint, screen recording tools such as Techsmith's Camtasia and more
advanced eLearning and software simulation solutions such as Firefly, Lectora and Articulate. Competition in this market is based
on speed of development and completeness of the features of products, ease-of-use and price. We believe our product can
successfully compete based upon the strength of its broad range of features, its strong brand among users and its widespread
adoption among training developers.
Our Adobe Contribute product faces competition from solutions that provide for the simple creation of blogs and “Wikis,”
as well as basic content publishing products such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Notepad, basic HTML
editors like ezHTMLArea and ekTron, and content management solutions similar to those with which our Day Web Experience
Management solution competes. Competition in this market is based on usability, quality and features of products, the level of
customization and integration with other WEM components, the integration with web design tools, the number of hardware
platforms supported, service and price. We believe we can successfully compete based upon the usability and price of Contribute,
its strong brand among users and integration with other WEM components.
In multimedia content authoring, our Adobe Director product faces competition from a variety of multimedia content
authoring tools. Competition is based on the quality and features of products, ease-of-use and price. We believe we have a strong
product and can successfully compete based upon the quality and features of the Director product, its strong brand among users,
its widespread adoption among content developers and publishers and the widespread proliferation of the Adobe Shockwave
Player.
In technical web authoring and publishing, our Adobe RoboHelp product faces competition from large-scale web publishing
systems, XML-based web publishing companies, as well as lower-end publishing products such as Microsoft Word. Competition
is based on the quality and features of products, the level of customization and integration with other publishing system components,
service and price. We believe we can successfully compete based upon the quality and features of the RoboHelp product.
Our Adobe ColdFusion products face competition from major vendors including Microsoft, IBM and Oracle (via its BEA
subsidiary and acquisition of Sun). Our ColdFusion products also compete with several technologies available today at no cost
including the PHP and PERL programming environments that are available for the Apache web server.
OPERATIONS
Marketing and Sales
We market and distribute our products through sales channels, which include distributors, retailers, software developers,
systems integrators, ISVs and VARs, as well as through OEM and hardware bundle customers. We also market and license our
products directly using our sales force and through our own website at www.adobe.com.
We support our end users through local field offices and our worldwide distribution network, which includes locations in
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dubai, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland,
Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
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