New Focus on Web Products Fuels Adobe Turnaround in Sales, Stocks

Beginning of article

A year ago, Adobe Systems, Inc. was almost down for the count. In fact, by the third quarter of 1998 the design software giant's stock had plummeted 50 percent.

To make matters worse, Quark Inc., a chief competitor, almost bought the company.

This monster of graphics enhancement software was adrift, but then the Internet exploded.

"If you looked at the Adobe of one and a half years ago, you did not see a company with the focus we have today," said Bryan Lamkin, vice president of marketing for Adobe's Professional Publishing Solutions arm.

For Adobe to survive, it had to take the strength of its professional publishing applications, which served the print and broadcast mediums for the last decade, and retool them to include the World Wide Web designer.

That change of focus, with an overall restructuring, had an immediate impact for the company, reflecting a six month, 11 percent increase (ending June 4 of this year) in sales resulting in revenues of $472.8 million. The company's stock price had also …