Adobe registers USD 319 million in revenues in the third quarter of 2003

The company has attributed this to exceptional year-over-year growth of 62 percent in the ePaper business, Adobe's key focus area at the upcoming Gitex Dubai 2003. Gitex Dubai 2003, the premier IT exhibition in the Middle East, will be held at Dubai World Trade Centre from 19-23 October 2003.

To strengthen its leadership in the ePaper business, Adobe will be holding a series of seminars, over two days, at Gitex Dubai 2003. While two of the seminars, "Creative Software from Adobe" and "Adobe Intelligent Document Solutions", will highlight recent software innovations, the third seminar, entitled "How software compliance can help your business", will focus on the benefits of using original software, instead of the pirated versions which are flooding the IT markets. The seminars are open to IT and multi-media professionals who wish to get themselves updated on the latest innovations in publication software.

"Adobe would like to use its participation at Gitex Dubai 2003 to showcase the latest range of innovative publication software solutions," said Ibrahim Lahoud, Middle East Regional Manager, Adobe Systems Europe Ltd. "At the same time, as a world-leader in the development of creative software, we would like to address the issue of software piracy. Software piracy ultimately stifles innovation. The cost of combating software piracy, and the resultant lost revenues, could be spent on research and development that will ultimately benefit users. Gitex is a meeting ground for IT and media professionals as well as individual PC users, making it the ideal forum to raise the levels of awareness about the seriousness of this issue."

The first seminar, "Creative software from Adobe", on October 19, will be addressed by Peder Engrob, Creative Professional Publishing, Adobe Systems. The seminar will focus on ways to optimise the benefits of using Adobe's creative software. The seminar will also provide a view of the company's vision of a network publishing world where it is possible to break through all existing design related boundaries and make reliable, visually rich information available to anyone, anywhere, on any device.

The second seminar, focussing on "How software compliance can help your business", will be held on October 20, and addressed by Najeeb Khan, Anti-Piracy Manager, Adobe Systems. The seminar will highlight the issue of protection of intellectual property rights and attempt to raise awareness about the benefits of using licensed versions of original software. Topics covered in the seminar will include "Piracy in the design and printing sector", "Piracy in document management and delivery" and the effects of piracy on the developer, the user and the different industry sectors.

This will be followed by a presentation by Jonathan Knowles, Worldwide Spokesman, ePaper, Adobe Systems, on "Adobe Intelligent Document solutions", which are used to replace inefficient, manual, paper-based processes with streamlined, automated processes. Intelligent document solutions are amongst the highest selling of Adobe's products and solutions.

"The seminar will explore Adobe Intelligent Document Solutions' potential in enabling enterprises to solve the problems of system adaptation, by facilitating information-sharing and business transactions that extend beyond core applications and users. The access, use and interpretation of data stored in enterprise applications has expanded beyond the initial set of core users and the expense and time required to adapt the systems to meet this need have become prohibitive. As a result manual systems are commonly used, which leads to process inefficiencies, delays, and poor quality of information", aid Lahoud.

Besides the seminars, the Adobe stand will also host live demonstrations of its software for Creative Suite and ePaper, as well as presentations on Adobe License Compliancy.

Adobe has achieved revenues of US$319.1 million, in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2003, compared to US$284.9 million reported for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2002 and $320.1 million reported in the second quarter of the fiscal year 2003. On a year-over-year basis, this represents 12 percent growth. Adobe's third quarter revenue target range was $300 to $315 million.