Adobe soars on report of possible Microsoft bid

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"Shares of Adobe soared in heavy trading Thursday on a report that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussed a possible buyout of the company.

A report posted in the 'Bits' blog of The New York Times said Ballmer recently met with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen to talk about Apple's control of the cell phone market and how Microsoft and Adobe could work together to fend off the iPhone maker.

It was in this context that a possible buyout of Adobe by Microsoft Corp. came up, according to The Times. Microsoft had no comment.

In a statement, Adobe said it shares 'millions of customers around the world' with Microsoft, and 'the CEOs of the two companies do meet from time to time. However, we do not publicly comment on the timing or topics of their private meetings.'

Adobe Systems Inc., based in San Jose, Calif., makes software such as Photoshop and the Flash technology used for Web videos and games. The company has been in a long-standing feud with Apple Inc. over Flash, which Apple bans from mobile devices including iPad and the iPhone.

An Adobe acquisition would be a huge one for Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, whose last big purchase was in 2007, when it bought aQuantive Inc. for $6 billion. A proposed deal to buy Yahoo Inc. the following year fell apart when Microsoft withdrew a $47.5 billion bid. Adobe's market cap is close to $15 billion.

Gleacher & Co. analyst Yun Kim said a potential buyer would be 'great' for Adobe, which is looking to grow its annual revenue to $5 billion in the next couple of years. It had revenue of about $3 billion last year.

'Their business is not going as well as people thought,' he said.

But how a deal would benefit Microsoft is less clear, Kim added. It would only make sense if Microsoft could use Adobe's business to put itself in a better position in the online advertising market, where Google dominates.

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Apple's iPad: Adobe works with publishers to create apps without Flash

Apple's iPad: Adobe works with publishers to create apps without Flash - San Jose Mercury News

Apple may have banned Adobe Systems' Flash platform from its iPhone and iPad, but Adobe isn't abandoning the Cupertino computer maker's popular mobile devices.

The San Jose maker of graphic design and Internet software today announced the availability of new digital viewer technology that lets publishers use its InDesign software to create apps for Apple's iPad.

Adobe worked with magazine giant Condé Nast, publisher of Wired, to create the new viewer technology.

"Our partnership with Adobe allowed us to reimagine and rebuild a print issue into an amazing digital magazine experience on iPad," Thomas J. Wallace, editorial director of Condé Nast, said in a statement released by Adobe.

Wired has created a $4.99-a-copy app for the iPad starting with its June issue.

Adobe 'shifting focus' from Apple

Adobe 'shifting focus' from Apple | Apple - CNET News: "In response to Apple CEO Steve Jobs' explanation on why his company refuses to let Adobe Systems' Flash Player on his company's iPhone, Adobe's chief technology officer sounded an upbeat tone and said the company was moving on without Apple.

'We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch,' Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch wrote in a company blog post late Thursday. 'However, as we posted last week, given the legal terms Apple has imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple devices for both Flash Player and AIR.'

Lynch also said made a point of highlighting Adobe's work on an iPhone competitor.

'We look forward to delivering Flash Player 10.1 for Android smartphones as a public preview at Google I/O in May, and then a general release in June,' he said.

Earlier Thursday, Apple published a rare open letter from Jobs that criticized Flash for being proprietary, sapping battery power, not supporting multitouch interfaces, posing security risks, and being unstable. 'Flash is the No. 1 reason Macs crash,' Jobs said.

Flash Player, a programming foundation that's ubiquitous on personal computers, is widely used for tasks such as online games, photo editors, and video streaming, and with the upcoming version 10.1, Adobe is trying anew to bring Flash to mobile devices.

The software is designed to work on phones using RIM's BlackBerry OS, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, Palm's WebOS, Nokia's Symbian, and Google's Android. But Adobe has been increasingly vocal about its dissatisfaction with the Apple situation, especially after Apple barred a new tool from Adobe that would let Flash developers turn their programs into native iPhone applications."