Adobe Inc., formerly known as Adobe Systems Incorporated, is a worldwide computer software corporation based in San Jose, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Graphics, photography, illustration, animation, multimedia/video, motion pictures, and print have all been served by its software.
Graphics, photography, illustration, animation, multimedia/video, motion pictures, and print have all been served by its software. Adobe Photoshop image editing software; Adobe Illustrator vector-based illustration software; Adobe Acrobat Reader and the Portable Document Format (PDF); and a number of tools primarily for audio-visual content creation, editing, and distribution are among the company’s flagship products.
Adobe Creative Suite was a combined solution of its products that developed into Adobe Creative Cloud, a subscription software as a service (SaaS) offering. The firm has moved into digital marketing software, and by 2021, it was regarded as one of the world’s top Customer Experience Management companies (CXM).
Following their exit from Xerox PARC, John Warnock and Charles Geschke launched Adobe in December 1982 to develop and commercialize the PostScript page description language. Apple Computer first licensed PostScript for use in their LaserWriter printers in 1985, kicking off the desktop publishing revolution. Adobe eventually purchased Macromedia, from which it obtained Adobe Flash; video editing and compositing software with Adobe Premiere, later known as Adobe Premiere Pro; low-code web development with Adobe Muse; and a suite of tools for digital marketing management with Adobe Muse.
Adobe employs about 24,000 people worldwide as of 2021. Across addition to Newton, New York City, Minneapolis, Lehi, Seattle, Austin, and San Francisco, Adobe maintains substantial development activities in the United States. It also has significant development activities in India, particularly Noida and Bangalore.
Founding of Adobe
John Warnock and Charles Geschke launched the firm in 1982. The two computer scientists devised a programming language specifically designed to specify the precise location, shape, and size of things on a computer-generated page while working at Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto (California) Research Center (PARC). This page description language, later known as PostScript, described objects like letters and graphics in mathematical terms, without referring to any specific computer or printer; any device that could interpret the language could generate a representation of the page at any resolution the device could support.
When Xerox refused to commercialize the invention, Warnock and Geschke founded their own firm, which they named after a stream near their homes.
Desktop Publishing Revolution
Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.) purchased 15% of Adobe in 1983 and became the first PostScript licensee. The LaserWriter, based on a laser-print engine built by Canon Inc., was Apple’s first Macintosh-compatible PostScript printer in 1985. The LaserWriter came with PostScript versions of numerous classic fonts as well as a PostScript interpreter—basically, a built-in computer that translated PostScript commands into marks on each page.
When compared to prior printing alternatives for personal computers, the combination of PostScript with laser printing provided a significant improvement in typographic quality and design freedom. These technologies, along with PageMaker, an Aldus Corporation page-layout tool, allowed any computer user to create professional-looking reports, flyers, and newsletters without the need for specialist lithographic equipment or training—a phenomenon known as desktop publishing.
Because laser printer output fell short of professional standards, many commercial printers and publishers were first dismissive. However, producers of higher-resolution output devices known as imagesetters, led by Linotype-Hell Company, followed Apple’s lead in licensing PostScript, and it became widely used in the publishing business within a few years.
Font Wars
In 1986, Adobe went public for the first time. Despite increasing revenues to $168.7 million by 1990, Adobe’s relationship with Apple deteriorated in the late 1980s over PostScript licensing fees, and Apple announced plans to sell its Adobe stock, collaborate with Microsoft Corporation on the development of an enhanced PostScript clone, and introduce its own font-rendering technology, called TrueType, in 1989. The typeface wars engulfed the computing and publishing sectors for more than a year before Apple and Adobe struck an agreement. Following the deal, Microsoft dropped its PostScript clone in favor of TrueType for its Windows platforms.
Today
Adobe Inc. has received industry recognition and has been named one of Fortune’s Blue Ribbon Companies. Adobe now employs over 24,000 people globally, and its fiscal year 2020 revenue is expected to exceed US$12.87 billion.