"We'd like to develop our market in Israel, but we have no concrete plans at the moment," Adobe Systems director of corporate development Yaniv Vakrat told "Globes" during his visit to Israel last week. "Our acquisitions or collaborations aim to complement the company's business. The technology that interests us must be related to our fields, especially on the user side."
Adobe Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE) has initiated business activity in the Israeli market, beginning by getting to know companies and funds of possible interest to it. Adobe currently distributes its products in Israel through Quicksoft Ltd.. Adobe manages its regional business from its South African unit.
Since 2007, Adobe has been trying to expand its product range into new fields. Revenue from the company's Creative Suite and other so-called creative solutions, rose by 20% to 59% of total company revenue for the second quarter of 2008. Adobe has a market cap of $22 billion. It is synonymous with pdf files, Acrobat software, Flash Player for website video clips and presentations, and Photoshop graphics.
Israel is one the few locations where Adobe has little strategic presence. It is the only top-five Wall Street technology companies - after Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), Oracle Corporation (Nasdaq: ORCL), SAP AG (NYSE; XETRA: SAP), and ahead of Symantec Corporation (Nasdaq: SYMC) - with no strategic activity in Israel.
Adobe's corporate venture capital fund has $300 million under management. Vakrat notes that the fund is intended solely for the company's strategic needs and that it is "another tool for cooperation". His activity in Israel is unrelated to this fund, even though it could invest in suitable Israeli companies.
Vakrat says that Adobe plans to double the deployment of Flash Player from 500 million devices to one billion by next year. "Our goal is to deploy the platform on as many devices as possible," he says. To achieve this, the company plans to forego user fees for the Flash Player and its new AIR open development platform for Internet applications, using the same model it used for earlier applications.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 27, 2008
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