Adobe promotes new suits to lead the war for the future of Flash

Facing the collapse of its Flash empire under weight of Apple’s move to abandon the once useful multimedia standard, Adobe has taken assertive action — it has promoted a few executives to shoulder the burden.

The new suits have been put in place in order to “align and strengthen the company’s focus on major customer segments and enable these customers to create, deliver and optimize digital experiences across a wide range of media and devices,” the company said.

(Some may remark that perhaps Adobe should have had people at executive level doing this for a long time, but this may be unfair).

David Wadhwani, who has served as vice president and general manager of Adobe’s Platform Business Unit since 2008, has been promoted to senior vice president and general manager of the newly formed Creative and Interactive Solutions business unit (CISBU), reporting to Shantanu Narayen, Adobe president and CEO. The CISBU will include the Creative Suites, the Flash Platform, digital publishing and rich media solutions.

Narayen says, “By combining these products and solutions in one business unit, we can deliver faster on our vision of multi-screen publishing, and drive innovation and support for both Flash and HTML5 authoring. Wadhwani’s expertise in cross-platform content solutions will benefit our publishing, media and enterprise customers, helping them more quickly move from print and single screen workflows to the digital and multi-screen world of the future.”

Senior Vice President John Loiacono, who has led Adobe’s Creative Solutions BU (CSBU) since 2006, has been appointed to lead the newly-created Digital Media Solutions BU (DMSBU), also reporting to Narayen. The unit will focus on innovation and expanding market opportunities for Adobe’s “core digital imaging franchise” (Photoshop et al).