Is Adobe® LiveCycle® being Put Out to Pasture?
Updated since: Wednesday, January 11, 2012
If you have been following Adobe® in the news in the past few months, it appears there are some exciting changes going on. Most notable to me was their November 8th announcement where they outlined the restructuring of their business to focus on digital media and digital marketing.
Shortly after on November 16, analyst group Gartner released a research report titled “Reassess Adobe’s BPM and CCA Platforms as its Strategy has Shifted”. In this paper, Gartner quotes Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch who said: "Adobe will ramp down its investment and its focus on LiveCycle but will continue to offer LiveCycle to the public sector and financial services sector."
So looking at the information available:
- New company focus on digital media and digital marketing
- Gartner’s analysis which mentions:
- “the shift away from enterprise software and Digital Enterprise Platform removes Adobe from the broader content management market”
- And recommends customers “explore alternatives”
I can’t help but start drawing some conclusions.
Check out what others are saying...
- An article in the Ottawa Citizen reported “Adobe will curtail marketing and future development of LiveCycle”
- Reuters published an article stating “The company said the revenue shortfall is partly because it plans to scale back promotion of its LiveCycle business process management software”
Having been in this software game way longer than I’d like to mention, to me it looks like a new focus (digital media and digital marketing) is in the Adobe barn and it sounds like Adobe could be putting LiveCycle® out to pasture???
As an employee of Adlib who sells server-based PDF conversion software I have mixed feelings as without Adobe’s great work in establishing a market for PDF’s, there would be no Adlib. On the flipside, Adlib’s PDF software has competed for years with Adobe LiveCycle PDF Generator and if Adobe’s focus is indeed shifted from the enterprise space and subsequently LiveCycle, I am optimistic about Adlib’s growth opportunities if customers start take Gartner’s advice and look for alternatives.
I would love to hear your perceptions of what Adobe’s shift in strategy means and how it may affect you!
Want to learn more? Visit http://info.adlibsoftware.com/livecycle-alternative
