Adobe Case

Case Report Adobe Systems Incorporated: Standards Battle

Group 2 Sruti Jilla Manoj Shenoy Kai Wen

    Case  Report   ENTP  6375  Technology  and  New  Product  Development  

Background    

● ● Adobe Systems Incorporated was founded by two Xerox PARC scientists – John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. Adobe’s first product, PostScript, became the driving force of the desktop publishing revolution. By creating an interface between a computer and an output device such as a printer Adobe solved several issues faced by publishers. PostScript was available as an open standard and for free which allowed software developers to create output that could be printed on multiple devices that interpreted PostScript By introducing an interpreter that was independent of the software, publishers could design content that could be printed on printers of various resolutions based on their utility and costs. After the success of PostScript, Adobe created a universal document format called Portable Document Format (PDF) that would allow users to share content with each other without losing the formatting. PostScript allowed users to share both text and graphics on various computer platforms. Although PDF did not take off as well as PostScript, the advent of the Internet accelerated the user acceptance and PDF eventually became the preferred format for sharing documents on the Internet. The drastic increase in the Acrobat Reader user base accelerated the sales of Acrobat full product needed to create PDFs. Adobe also developed several strategic partnerships with Dell, Compaq, Sony, AOL and IRS in order increase both the availability of Acrobat Reader and encourage its usage. Adobe created an entire suite of products around their PDF platform that served a wide variety of purposes in the desktop publishing and content sharing industry. Adobe unbundled the full Acrobat product in order meet needs of various market segments. Adobe entered the...