Tech Talk: Adobe CEO, Bruce Chizen Visits CS3
Thursday, August 30, 2007SUSIE GHARIB: When Adobe Systems launched its new software in April, it was its biggest product launch in its 25 year history. Creative Suite Three is a collection of content creation tools for professionals in design, web and video production. In a special tech-talk interview, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen told Scott Gurvey that Creative Suite is already adding to Adobe's bottom line.
BRUCE CHIZEN, CEO, ADOBE SYSTEMS: What's really neat is CS3 has exceeded our wildest expectation in terms of adoption. I think we haven't announced our Q3 earnings yet. We over achieved our Q2 expectations. I would be surprised if we don't overachieve on our Q3 results.
SCOTT GURVEY, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: So the adoption rate is clearly exceeding your expectations?
CHIZEN: Yeah, it's amazing. People are not only buying the suite, they are buying the higher end suites. They are buying the design premium which includes most of the products. And many are paying for the $2500 suite, the master collection which includes everything, including our video products.
GURVEY: Almost at that price point has to include the computer.
CHIZEN: In fact, we thought about a promotion, buy a master collection CS3 and get a computer free.
GURVEY: We can't go without telling you about some of the competition. Microsoft also has a whole new line for them of creation, content creation products. They're also working of course in the document area with a format that is trying to compete with Acrobat.
CHIZEN: Fortunately for us PDF has become so pervasive throughout society, organizations, businesses, government agencies around the world, have their entire work flows built upon PDF. So I would be surprised if Microsoft is able to unseat the pervasiveness of PDF, we always take them serious and we'll watch them carefully.
GURVEY: They do have to be taken seriously. Talk to me about the business right now, I mean, particularly we have this strange economic climate going on. What are you seeing from your vantage point?
CHIZEN: It's interesting. Our customers really care about the expression of their information whether they are business-to-business or business to consumer or government to government or government to consumer. They know that they are going to send information to someone. They need that information to be very engaging. They need to use -- to have a great experience whether it's a form or a web site or a video or a magazine, or a newspaper or a TV broadcast. And that's what we do really well. We create solutions to help them communicate more efficiently in a much more engaging way across many, many different devices. And because of that, our business is extremely healthy. We will probably break the $3 billion mark this year even though we originally thought we would do approximately $2,961 million. So getting to $3 billion or beyond $3 billion will be quite an achievement. I think that says a lot about society's desire to communicate more and more information. And that plays well for Adobe.
GURVEY: You got anything coming up that you want to spill the beans about.
CHIZEN: The Adobe media player. Flash --
GURVEY: Wait, wait, you are working on an Adobe media player.
CHIZEN: Adobe media player which will allow -- flash video has become the most pervasive format on the web for video viewing. The one challenge with flash video is you can only view it within a browser. So what we have created to stand alone application that will allow you to view all this wonderful video right with a stand alone player.
GURVEY: Are we going to see you in the hardware business?
CHIZEN: You probably won't see us in the hardware business.
GURVEY: Very good, we will keep an eye out for this. Thank you.
CHIZEN: My pleasure, Scott.
