Adobe misses earnings forcast, Macworld '09

Adobe is hitting some rough waters lately with its latest sales figures in.  It seems that in a bad economy, companies take a pass on upgrading a $1000-2000/seat piece of software (CS4).  Most creative agencies aren’t really increasing headcounts either.  No surprise there.

• Adobe expects Q4 sales to come in between $912 million and $915 million, below its previous estimate of $925 million to $955 million, and below Wall Street’s consensus of $930 million. (Not terrible, actually.)
• The main reason: Weaker than expected demand for its Creative Suite 4 software, including Photoshop, etc.
• Adobe will lay off 600 workers worldwide. That will result in a pre-tax charge of $44 million to $50 million, about 60% of which will be written down in Q4.
• Adobe is aiming for $800 million to $850 million in Q1 revenue — below year-ago sales, and significantly below the Street’s $931 million consensus, but not far from the Street’s low estimate of $809 million.

Along with dropping those 600 workers, there has been some restructuring at the top, and apparently frivolous ventures like showing up at Macworld with a huge fancy booth have been cut out of the plan as well.  What better way to show the public you are on the ropes?

Never fear!  Adobe will be fine.  They’ve long ago bought up the competition.  Their big focus right now is on Air and Flash platforms running on everything.  Creative Suite on the Mac, for the most part, sells itself.  Or in the case of Macworld ’09, there will be Adobe training sessions which hope to sell some CS4.