Adobe 2009 Annual Report Download - page 11

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Document-based collaboration among knowledge workers can occur through face-to-face meetings, via phone calls,
through e-mail or through Web conferencing technologies. Knowledge workers who participate in collaborations with their
colleagues may be located in offices next door to each other, or in different parts of the world. These team members may
change with every project and either be part of an organization’s employee base, or be an external consultant or third-party
partner.
We believe there is a significant opportunity to provide solutions which enable knowledge workers to communicate and
collaborate across technical, geographical and social boundaries, both inside and outside of their companies. We believe that
with such solutions, users can collaborate and efficiently manage feedback from their colleagues in both real time and on-
demand, and control how, when and by whom information is accessed.
Since the early 1990s, our Acrobat family of products has provided for the reliable creation and exchange of electronic
documents, regardless of platform or application source type. Users can collaborate on documents with electronic comments
and tailor the security of a file in order to distribute reliable Adobe PDF documents that can be viewed, printed or interacted
with utilizing the free Adobe Reader. Available in different versions which target a variety of user needs, Adobe Acrobat
provides essential electronic document capabilities and services to help knowledge workers accomplish a wide range of ad
hoc tasks involving digital documents ranging from simple publications to forms to mission critical engineering and
architectural plans. Although Acrobat has achieved strong market adoption in document-intensive industries such as
government, financial services, pharmaceutical, legal, aerospace, insurance and technical publishing, we believe there are
tens of millions of users who need capabilities such as those provided by Acrobat who have not yet licensed an Acrobat-
based solution.
Our Acrobat.com service provides centralized online file sharing and storage capabilities, as well as simple PDF
creation, an online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation authoring capabilities, and personal Web conferencing
services with Adobe ConnectNow that is based on our Acrobat Connect Pro Web conferencing solution. In addition to
complementing our Acrobat desktop solutions, Acrobat.com also serves as an introductory service for knowledge workers
who wish to utilize PDF-creation capabilities and the Adobe Reader, but have not yet licensed an Acrobat desktop solution.
Knowledge Worker Business Summary
In fiscal 2009, our Knowledge Worker business was adversely affected by the recession and the weak general macro-
economic environment. This caused revenue for our Knowledge Worker products to be approximately 23% weaker than
revenue achieved in fiscal 2008. Despite this economy-driven weakness, we maintained our focus on driving adoption of our
Acrobat products during the year—particularly with enterprise and government customers.
Our Acrobat 9 family of products, which first shipped in August of 2008, offers features that allow workgroups to
manage a range of essential business activities such as assembling documents from multiple sources, controlling security and
access to sensitive information, enabling the creation and filling out of intelligent electronic forms and more effectively
collaborating on documents and projects. In addition, the Acrobat 9 family of products allows users to unify a wide range of
content into a PDF Portfolio. Users can assemble documents, drawings, e-mail, spreadsheets and rich media—including
audio, video, 3D and maps—in a single, compressed PDF Portfolio. Other version 9 features and enhancements included the
ability to: create interactive, on-demand presentations using Adobe Presenter software; easily share video in PDF using FLV;
improved security to help protect and control access to PDF documents; permanently remove sensitive information through
the use of redaction tools to black out sensitive text, illustrations, or other information; easily create and manage electronic
forms; and enable anyone using the free Adobe Reader to digitally sign documents, participate in shared document reviews
and save forms locally. These enhanced capabilities helped to continue the increase of our penetration of Acrobat desktop
licenses in enterprises.
During the year, continued adoption of our Creative Suite products has also contributed to broader adoption of Acrobat
in the creative professional market. Acrobat Pro is included in four of the six Creative Suite editions and utilization of
Acrobat prepress, printing and collaboration functionality is a critical component of creative customer workflows. As such,
adoption of Acrobat through the Creative Suite family of products has resulted in a material amount of Acrobat revenue
being reported in our Creative Solutions Segment during the year.