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4Ps
A billion dollar baby or just a midnight dream?
A billion dollar business is what Adobe India is aiming at. But that’s actually harder done than said as there are only a handful of billion dollar software businesses globally. Will Adobe India make it to the top? 4Ps B&Ms Pawan Chabra explores…
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 It was surprisingly a warm sunny morning rather than the usual chilly and foggy day-break that Delhi witnesses during winters when we left for Adobe’s office at Noida. As we were steering our way through Delhi’s chaotic traffic jams we could ignore everything but those boys at traffic lights selling business magazines and dailies blatantly questioning the future of Indian IT post the Satyam scam. Is the great Indian IT dream heading towards a ruthless death? We were questioning each other, the very next moment!
As clichéd as it may sound, there is no denying that the revolution in the Indian IT sector is the backbone of the success story of India Inc. And if it dies it would really mean the return of the era of dormancy that once stalked Dalal Street. But as we reached the sixth floor of the superbly designed Adobe’s India office, we were forced to give a second thought to our bleak view of Indian IT. Naresh Gupta, MD, Adobe India smashed the idea out with a vigour. “Oh! It’s over now. The fundamentals of the Indian economy are still very strong. Finding one rotten apple in the bucket doesn’t mean the whole bucket is dirty,” Gupta answered in a flash, indicating as if he was expecting it. Moreover, he didn’t forget to proudly claim Adobe as one of the most ethical business houses across the globe, well before we could jump over to Adobe India’s future.
Certainly the growth of Adobe India over a short span of 12 years is truly mind boggling. The company which started as a mere R&D division of Adobe today stands tall in crowd running a full business and more importantly taking care of the whole Print & Publishing Business of San Jose, California based Adobe. Moreover, with the recent launch of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), the company has surely initiated the fourth phase of growth (the first three were backed by rich content, PDF and Flash respectively) in the country. AIR platform provides the user a combination of PDF, HTML and Flash, which enables him to run an application both in an online & offline mode along with providing video & animation services. Though the company has just launched it on desktops but as Gupta mentions, “we eventually want to take it on mobiles and other possible devices,” the future really looks bright for Adobe. This application certainly has the potential to take a lot of burden off the developer’s (the intended client) shoulders.
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 But then what about the competition from behemoths like Microsoft and Google? “There’s almost no company in the world that can claim Microsoft and Google to be its competition and still be in the business,” Gupta admits honestly, though he takes no time to add that the company has more opportunities to partner with Google rather than competing with it. However, when it comes to Microsoft equipped with technologies like Silverlight and XPS, which compete with Adobe’s PDF and Flash respectively, Gupta openly confesses, “There are chances that Microsoft gifts us sleepless nights.” But then it’s just not Microsoft. With Google also planning to come up with a similar technology like AIR, the scenario is only going to get worse in times to come for Adobe.
No doubt the company has started thinking in the direction and is continuously working on it but it really needs to be more aggressive as Victor Hugo had once said, “there is nothing like a dream to create the future.” Certainly Gupta too is more or less dreaming on the same theme, as he wants to create an independent business for Adobe in India and “if it can be a billion dollar business, then there can’t be anything better that I can think of,” he shares with 4Ps B&M. But then it’s an easy said than done task as there are not many billion dollar software businesses running today across the world. Moreover he shouldn’t forget that the best way to beat your competition, particularly in the IT arena is to come out with a technology, which is far superior to your competitor’s.
That’s surely not impossible for the company which is one of the best places to work for in the country. However, given the hiccups like broadband reach and connectivity in India the task looks a little difficult for Gupta. “The hiccups are just a part of the story but at the macro level we have made huge progress and we will continue to do so,” Gupta disagrees with us. But then Adobe India has definitely been hit by the prevailing slowdown and like others it too has lowered its Q1 forecasts for 2009. Considering this, it would really be a tough time ahead for Adobe to manage competitors that have huge cash chests. However, Gupta doesn’t seems bothered much by the fact and is all gung ho about Adobe’s Indian business. And more importantly, at a time when all the other companies are in love with the pink colour, Adobe India is planning to hire more people than the company did in 2008. Though, the company recently fired 600 people globally, none of them were from India, as it only let go people from where the projects were being shelved. Moreover, “we will continue hiring in India very aggressively and will come out with great sales and marketing strategies. And as the slowdown ends, we will be in a very good position,” claims Gupta.
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