Filed under: Software
Adobe layoffs strike home, 680 to lose jobs
TechCrunch, among other news outlets, reports that Adobe is cutting 680 employees as part of a restructuring plan. This is roughly 9 percent of the company's workforce. The news comes on the heels of Electronic Arts' decision to layoff 1,500 workers and a reduction of 600 from Adobe back in December. Adobe had purchased Omniture in September and reduced its workforce by 9 percent at that time.The cost of restructuring for Adobe will total between $65 and $71 million, the TechCrunch article says.
The layoffs come just after Adobe announced that Flash Professional CS5 will be able to turn Flash projects into iPhone apps. The company has also recently released a version of its Photoshop.com Mobile app for the iPhone [iTunes link].
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Shunnabunich said 11:35PM on 11-10-2009
Wow. I didn't even know they HAD 680 Mac developers.
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sporobolus said 1:52AM on 11-11-2009
has twitter made people unable to think when making comments?
developers are a small minority at most big development companies; i'm sure this layoff includes all kinds of people, from support to management to marketing to administration, as well as perhaps a few developers
also, don't forget Apple laid off 1600 retail employees last spring, and has had far worse times in the past
i think these layoff's reflect more than just the recession -- they also say something about how Adobe has managed its products;
one can only hope that in addition to layoffs Adobe finds a way to freshen its vision
Shunnabunich said 2:47AM on 11-11-2009
[insert sigh here]
I never even used Twitter after the first couple tries. Has the backlash against it made people unable to spot sarcasm in incidentally Twitter-sized sentences?
If anybody was going to get the axe at Adobe, it'd be the people they appreciate/want/use/etc. the least. The joke was that, because that group is surely comprised almost entirely of their Mac software developers, they must've managed to find 680 of them to let go before even considering anyone else. There, ya good?
Information Central said 6:09AM on 11-11-2009
It said "developers", not "Mac developers".
Joshua Ochs said 12:41AM on 11-11-2009
As long as those developers are responsible for the atrocities that are 1) the CS suite installers, 2) Flash on the Mac, and 3) the hideous non-native interfaces plaguing Photoshop, Elements, etc, then I have no problem with this.
Adobe has managed to go from an industry darling to completely reviled in a decade. Nice going, guys!
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alansky said 2:19AM on 11-11-2009
The fact is that Photoshop has never faced a serious challenger. This is why Adobe has gotten away with sitting on their hands year after year, decade after decade. But the chickens are coming home to roost. Adobe needs to get their asses in gear (and pronto) to maintain their status in the industry, Photoshop or no Photoshop.
Joey said 1:26AM on 11-11-2009
CS4, and CS3 before it, are both bug ridden dogs on my Mac. I've tweaked, reinstalled and done just about whatever I can but, nothing helps. I get beachballs, unexpected quits on close, and the performance on my Mac Pro w/ 12gb of ram is just unreasonably bad.
To think I spent so much money on this suite is embarrassing. However to know for a fact that it runs just fine in Windows 7 on the same system is downright offensive. Some days I dual boot and do my work using the trials just for some stability.
All that said, I can't wish for their demise because there's just no adequate replacements for this stuff - especially now that Macromedia is dead. Adobe is the only game in town.
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Rego said 3:01AM on 11-11-2009
@ alansky
@Joey
Have you taken a look at Studio Artist? It is deeper than photoshop and painter combined and less expensive. It has been since it's inception, a Mac only program. This year the developer is opening it up to that other OS. The newest version is 4.0 available in beta.
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Khalil said 3:03AM on 11-11-2009
I guess this means that Flash for OS X won't be fixed anytime soon.
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Information Central said 6:11AM on 11-11-2009
Good. The last thing we need is more shitty Flash sites thrown together by hacks who can't be bothered to learn proper standards-compliant techniques.
Eventually hotels, restaurants, and stores will learn not to bury critical information in stupid Flash animations, making it inaccessible to mobile users who are out trying to obtain it so they can become customers.
Didou said 3:03AM on 11-11-2009
They must be feeling the heat of HTML 5 video functions.
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robogobo said 4:00AM on 11-11-2009
I feel bad for the employess losing their jobs, but it's been a long time coming. How many years have we been overpaying for under developed software, with little or no attention paid after initial release (10.0.1 was the last CS3 release, despite dozens of remaining problems). I'd estimate only 10% of users actually paid for the product due to its exorbitant pricing and diminishing utility. I'm not saying stealing is ok, but I understand.
They got way too comfortable at the top, and now they're starting to feel the pressure. Instead of responding with a new strategy, they fire people. Typical. Once Pixelmator or the next Aperture fills the gaps where photoshop is still needed, I'm ditching Adobe for good, unless they show me they can get off their high horse. Hell, I can almost replace InDesign with Pages at this point.
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robogobo said 4:25AM on 11-11-2009
hey Victor, when is that Edit button shipping?
*employees
**10.0.1 was the last Photoshop CS3 release
DMD said 5:16AM on 11-11-2009
I'm hoping CS5's native rewrite for the Mac will finally make the software as stable as its Windows counterpart.
It sucks to have to save your money for a year in order to buy buggy software that crashes for no apparent reason.
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jonathan said 10:38AM on 11-11-2009
i cant imagine how any of you feel. i work as a web designer in a windows only environment. i hate the way cs4 runs on windows. i have plenty of RAM and the fastest processor in the office, and it never runs as well as it does on my mac.
i usually have a good number of high res photo files open as well as my project file, and i get constant hang up and crashes in windows.
i havent seen a beach ball on my mac running ps or any other cs4 suite program since .... cs3? maybe....
btw im running a macbook pro 2.5Ghz w 4gb ram
Information Central said 6:16AM on 11-11-2009
Adobe has been moribund for some time. Some of their products are more or less abandonware, with Illustrator leading the sorry pack.
They aren't helped by the fact that their product lineup has exploded into a bewildering array of crap. I don't think most people know WTF half their Web-design apps are for, or perhaps even that they're Web-design apps (their names don't tell you).
Chop this deadwood out and focus on some core products. Or do everyone a favor and make it all open source, and get out.
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lobo said 2:10PM on 11-11-2009
I got laid off just today, woohoo. I hope now Shantanu Narayen can afford to pay his bills. And his mortgage too. After a year of 10-hrs workdays this is the best reward one can ask for.
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Anon said 3:42AM on 11-14-2009
Adobe sickens me right now. They are laying off their workforce not because they're hitting financial trouble, but because they are outsourcing their work to under-payed workers in primarily China and India... in what may possibly be considered slave-labor conditions.
Shame on you Adobe! If they don't knock this crap off, then the modern day abolition movement will probably bring them to their knees.
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