Adobe Systems is planning large numbers of redundancies
following its $3.4bn (£2bn) completed acquisition of
Macromedia.
The acquisition was announced in spring but was only completed
last weekend. Adobe now says job cuts will be announced on 15
December, when it delivers its annual financial results.
The cuts will mainly be made where job duplication exists
between the companies, said Adobe. Some staff will also be offered
job re-location packages.
Macromedia had 1,500 employees worldwide before the acquisition,
with around 350 of them outside the US. Adobe said cuts would also
affect Adobe staff.
The acquisition has enabled Adobe to add Macromedia’s popular
Flash animation and video products to its own portfolio, which
includes the widely used Adobe Reader for viewing documents in
Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF).
The expanded product line, which now numbers around 70 products,
is seen by analysts as potentially increased competition to
Microsoft’s desktop software range.
