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betting on the future of the Internet playing out in ways that are bad for open standards I understand why you think adobe is betting against open standards an

by netsp 17y ago

betting on the future of the Internet playing out in ways that are bad for open standards I understand why you think adobe is betting against open standards and against consumers, but why do you think that this move is doing that? BTW, I am definitely not an expert on this matter, but it seems to me that people can get pretty dogmatic about standards. Adobe managed to get more options in to most people's browsers in a way that works. Even standards might benefit from a little competition. way too expensive Can you elaborate? Stock is at a relative low. Omniture's revenue is about 1/6 of sale price (they are not profitable, but they are growing). This strikes me as a poor fit I don't know a huge amount about this company, but judging by their income statement, they seem like a services company at least as much as a product development one. - 31-Dec-08 31-Dec-07 31-Dec-06 Revenue 295,613 143,127 79,749 Cost of Revenue 125,940 53,364 31,826 Research Development 36,966 17,257 8,732 Selling General & Admin175,851 85,828 47,334 The interesting thing is that Adobe has bought a company that looks like it is primarily a consulting/customisation/sales company.

SwellJoe 17y ago
I understand why you think adobe is betting against open standards and against consumers, but why do you think that this move is doing that? I'm just wild-ass guessing, as usual. My impression is that Omniture's unique strength is in Flash video analytics, in particular. But I may be wrong about that. I don't know much about them, actually. The graphic Adobe provided led me to believe that they view this as fitting analytics into Adobe's existing content workflow, which includes Flash/Flex/Air/whatever, and not a lot of standards-based approaches to the web (they work with standards, too, but it always seems an after-thought and an also-ran technology). So, if they envision this as a way to further lock companies into the Adobe web deployment silo, which is what it seems like to me, then I think it's a bad move...because it's betting against open standards and consumer freedoms winning in the end, and I always consider that a suckers bet. Can you elaborate? Stock is at a relative low. Omniture's revenue is about 1/6 of sale price (they are not profitable, but they are growing). They're a service business, as you noted, and a service business that isn't profitable (but growing) seems like the old, "We're losing money on every sale, but we'll make it up in volume!", philosophy. If growth doesn't result in increased efficiency, as it rarely does to a significant degree, in a service-based business, it seems like growth isn't a useful metric. I wouldn't think this would be a good fit for Adobe because their value to the market is product-based, and this gives them a (currently money-losing) service-focused business to manage. But, as I said, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I just choked a bit on the 1.8 billion number for a company that I can't imagine being worth that much (and it is entirely plausible that I'm showing a lack of imagination).
- netsp 17y ago
  I actually don't know what to make of acquisitions when it's two public companies. That $1.8b is more or less a market price. Think the market is over inflated? What difference does that make if you're own assets are valued by this mechanism also?
  - SwellJoe 17y ago
    Yeah, the market is dumb sometimes. Regardless, my primary concern, if I were at the helm at Adobe, would be trying to figure out how to make this seeming odd couple work out right. I don't see how it can possibly add $1.8 billion to the value of Adobe, but maybe I'm short-sighted.
    - netsp 17y ago
      Well, assuming that it is worth somewhere around $1.8b (either because of its intrinsic value or because you could sell it for around that), it has already added about that even if they do nothing but just own it. If they have any sort of plan for really integrating (I think they might have a history of doing this), it probably means they want the mature sales/consulting/customisation part of the business. The technology side, as mentioned elsewhere, is not that interesting.

by netsp 17y ago

SwellJoe 17y ago

I understand why you think adobe is betting against open standards and against consumers, but why do you think that this move is doing that? I'm just wild-ass guessing, as usual. My impression is that Omniture's unique strength is in Flash video analytics, in particular. But I may be wrong about that. I don't know much about them, actually. The graphic Adobe provided led me to believe that they view this as fitting analytics into Adobe's existing content workflow, which includes Flash/Flex/Air/whatever, and not a lot of standards-based approaches to the web (they work with standards, too, but it always seems an after-thought and an also-ran technology). So, if they envision this as a way to further lock companies into the Adobe web deployment silo, which is what it seems like to me, then I think it's a bad move...because it's betting against open standards and consumer freedoms winning in the end, and I always consider that a suckers bet. Can you elaborate? Stock is at a relative low. Omniture's revenue is about 1/6 of sale price (they are not profitable, but they are growing). They're a service business, as you noted, and a service business that isn't profitable (but growing) seems like the old, "We're losing money on every sale, but we'll make it up in volume!", philosophy. If growth doesn't result in increased efficiency, as it rarely does to a significant degree, in a service-based business, it seems like growth isn't a useful metric. I wouldn't think this would be a good fit for Adobe because their value to the market is product-based, and this gives them a (currently money-losing) service-focused business to manage. But, as I said, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I just choked a bit on the 1.8 billion number for a company that I can't imagine being worth that much (and it is entirely plausible that I'm showing a lack of imagination).

netsp 17y ago
I actually don't know what to make of acquisitions when it's two public companies. That $1.8b is more or less a market price. Think the market is over inflated? What difference does that make if you're own assets are valued by this mechanism also?
- SwellJoe 17y ago
  Yeah, the market is dumb sometimes. Regardless, my primary concern, if I were at the helm at Adobe, would be trying to figure out how to make this seeming odd couple work out right. I don't see how it can possibly add $1.8 billion to the value of Adobe, but maybe I'm short-sighted.
  - netsp 17y ago
    Well, assuming that it is worth somewhere around $1.8b (either because of its intrinsic value or because you could sell it for around that), it has already added about that even if they do nothing but just own it. If they have any sort of plan for really integrating (I think they might have a history of doing this), it probably means they want the mature sales/consulting/customisation part of the business. The technology side, as mentioned elsewhere, is not that interesting.