Adobe 2015 Annual Report Download - page 15

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Lastly, we also offer delivery assurance, technical support, and enablement services to partners and developer organizations.
Through the Adobe Partner Connection Program, we provide developers with high-quality tools, software development kits,
information and services.
Training Services
Adobe Global Services offers a comprehensive portfolio of training services to assist our customer and partner teams in
the use of our products, including those within Digital Marketing, Digital Media and other legacy products and solutions. Our
training portfolio includes a large number of free online self-service learning options on www.training.adobe.com. These self-
service offerings are supplemented by a number of free introductory programs on best practices that Adobe conducts. Adobe also
provides a number of fee-based education options, including a wide range of traditional classroom, virtual, and on-demand training
and certifications delivered by our team of training professionals and partners across the globe.
These core offerings are complemented by our custom learning and education services, such as our Digital Marketing
Learning Center of Excellence, to support our largest enterprise customers and their unique requirements. Solution-specific Skills
Assessments help our enterprise customers objectively assess the knowledge and competencies within their marketing teams, and
tailor their learning priorities accordingly. Finally, aligned with our cloud strategy, we have introduced a new learning subscription
service that enables customers to access all available Digital Marketing training over a 12-month period, to support the ongoing
advancement of our customers’ marketing teams and skill sets.
Investments
We make direct investments in privately held companies. We enter into these investments with the intent of securing financial
returns as well as for strategic purposes as they often increase our knowledge of emerging markets and technologies, as well as
expand our opportunities to provide Adobe products and services.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
As the software industry is characterized by rapid technological change, a continuous high level of investment is required
for the enhancement of existing products and services and the development of new products and services. We develop our software
internally as well as acquire products or technology developed by others by purchasing the stock or assets of the business entity
that owned the technology. In other instances, we have licensed or purchased the intellectual property ownership rights of programs
developed by others with license or technology transfer agreements that may obligate us to pay a flat license fee or royalties,
typically based on a dollar amount per unit shipped or a percentage of the revenue generated by those programs.
During fiscal 2015, 2014 and 2013, our research and development expenses were $862.7 million, $844.4 million and $826.6
million, respectively.
PRODUCT PROTECTION
We regard our software as proprietary and protect it under the laws of copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets.
We have a number of domestic and foreign patents and pending applications that relate to various aspects of our products and
technology. While we believe our patents have value, no single patent is material to us or to any of our reporting segments. We
protect the source code of our software programs as trade secrets and make source code available to third parties only under limited
circumstances and subject to specific security and confidentiality constraints. From time to time, we secure rights to third-party
intellectual property if beneficial to our business.
Our products are generally licensed to end users under one of the following two methods:
(1) We offer products on a “right to use” basis pursuant to a license that restricts the use of the products to a designated
number of devices, users or both. We also rely on copyright laws and on “shrink wrap” and electronic licenses that are
not physically signed by the end user. Copyright protection may be unavailable under the laws of certain countries and
the enforceability of “shrink wrap” and electronic licenses has not been conclusively determined in all jurisdictions.
(2) We offer products under a SaaS or on-demand model, where hosted software is provided on demand to customers,
generally through a web browser. The use of these products is governed by either the online terms of use or an enterprise
licensing agreement associated with the product.
Policing unauthorized use of computer software is difficult and software piracy is a persistent problem for the software
industry. This problem is particularly acute in international markets. We conduct piracy conversion and prevention programs