Adobe Girds for Stronger Competition in Marketing Cloud Services

Adobe Systems Inc., seeking to build on an unparalleled five-year run of success for its stock, is targeting a potential area of growth that will pit the software company against its biggest competitors.

The company has dominated in the field of digital media, the graphics and web-design software that generates about two-thirds of Adobe's $4.8 billion in annual sales. Now it's expanding its focus on marketing services -- where the company will compete directly with Salesforce.com Inc., Oracle Corp., Alphabet Inc. and International Business Machines Corp.

While the rivals may be bigger, Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen is bolstering spending and looking for partnerships to drive the effort after showing Wall Street that Adobe could transform itself into a cloud company over the past several years. He'll give investors the latest update on Thursday when the company announces quarterly results.

To gird for the sales fight, Adobe signed a deal in September with  Microsoft Corp. making Adobe's business marketing products the favored choice on Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing service. "The marketing business is a very, very large opportunity," said Mark Garret, Adobe's chief financial officer. "Having a partner like Microsoft with the reach that they've got helps tremendously."

Adobe was among the first software vendors to switch its sales approach from one-time licenses to subscriptions, which let customers use its products online through the cloud without having to install the software on their computers. The strategic change, credited to Narayen, gave Adobe the flexibility to update and improve its software quickly and is cited as a key reason the stock has increased 366 percent since a low of $22.69 in August 2011. The share rise is the third-biggest increase during the period in the 67-member S&P 500 Information Technology Sector Index, trailing only chipmakers Broadcom Ltd. and Nvidia Corp.

Narayen's "vision of increasing creativity, technology, and the proliferation of screens meant more people were consuming more content in more places than ever before," said  Dan Rosensweig, CEO of the online educational company Chegg Inc. and an Adobe board member for eight years. "It meant getting rid of the old business model."

Earnings Projections

Investors -- accustomed to the company topping expectations -- will be watching closely when Adobe announces fiscal fourth-quarter results. Analysts, on average, predict adjusted earnings per share to shoot up almost 40 percent from the year-ago period while sales should climb 22 percent.

The report will be the first update since early last month when the San Jose, California-based company issued a forecast for the new fiscal year that missed analyst's estimates. Adobe projected sales of about $7 billion and adjusted earnings of about $3.75 a share, while analysts predicted $7.1 billion of revenue and adjusted earnings of $3.86.

The stock hit a record $110.81 at the close Oct. 24, and Wednesday closed at $105.81 in New York. Analysts are optimistic that Adobe will continue its success even against more formidable rivals, and have set an average target price of $121.04, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

"I think Adobe's products will remain highly competitive in the marketplace due to the company's high level of innovation," said Josh Olson, an analyst at Edward Jones.

Challenging Competition

Adobe sees marketing services as the next battleground while it strives to meet its forecast of 20 percent revenue growth through fiscal 2018. While its partnership with Microsoft may expand its potential reach, the company faces strong competition for the basic component products that make up its Marketing Cloud. These pieces of software, called solutions, are the different services Adobe offers, such as website analytics and simplifying customers' interactions online as they engage with brands.

Adobe is investing beyond the Microsoft partnership. The company is increasing spending on engineering and sales -- helping boost operating costs by 13 percent in the latest quarterly report, compared with a gain of 3 percent in the previous fiscal year. It also announced early last month one of its larger acquisitions with a deal for TubeMogul, a video-advertising platform, for about $500 million. The purchase should benefit the company's marketing cloud.

While Adobe's value comes from its broad offering of products, companies such as Alphabet are competing fiercely by offering their own, sometimes free, basic options. To survive and expand, Adobe needs to focus on innovations at the solution level as well as its packaged Marketing Cloud, said  Jay Vleeschhouwer, an analyst at Griffin Securities.

"It's not enough to merely be integrated, it must be competitive within any given point," Vleeschhouwer said of Adobe. "So they absolutely have to put money back into the solutions."

Salesforce also poses a direct challenge to Adobe's Marketing Cloud with its acquisition of marketing-software startup Krux and the continued expansion of its extensive marketing cloud. Adobe, recognizing the threat from competitors big and small, is continually trying to refine its services, said Brad Rencher, Adobe's executive vice president and general manager for digital marketing.

"We are believers that only the paranoid survive," Rencher said. "We are looking at what we can do to disrupt ourselves. If and when our business is disrupted, we want to be the one doing it. We want to make sure we are at the forefront of innovation."

Source: Adobe Girds for Stronger Competition in Marketing Cloud Services

Deployment of an IoT Computing Platform: Make or Buy?

As the Internet of Things (IoT) evolves, it's likely that it will experience mutations similar to what was once achieved by more mature IT markets. The IoT implies a new client computing domain, aside the historical personal computer and the more recent mobile computing domain (smartphones and tablets).

By "client computing," we mean computers that connect to internet servers. PCs (desktops, laptops, notebooks, etc.) have evolved to become clients of servers in the internet as we know them today, with advanced wired and wireless connectivity and powerful operating systems (OSs) and browsers. Cell phones have also mutated into smartphones and tablets, offering new experiences to users with the notion of "apps."

It's interesting to highlight three important aspects of this mutation:

• The OS (and not the hardware) has become the true computing platform and consumer reference for its capacity to run compatible apps—I have a "Windows PC" or an "Android smartphone."

• The access to the Internet has become critical to the point of becoming an extension of the client OS itself, whether through a web browser or an application store app attached to the OS.

• Each client has come up with a personalized way of interacting with the internet and had mutual influences on each other – smartphones started with mobile websites and PC-like browsers, and then came apps and online stores, which were eventually generalized back on PCs.

PCs and mobile clients had their "ancestors"—software platforms upon which current OSs have been built. If we apply this to IoT client computing, it's likely that the IoT will be built on its own roots in embedded computing.

Also, the way consumer IoT devices connect and interact with the internet is only partially defined at this time, and it's likely that it will derive from the PC and mobile domains, with its own adaptations of browsers, apps, and stores. Eventually, IoT may invent a new way of "doing" the internet that may make its way back into mobile and PCs.

IoT Requires New Application Platforms

Let's look at the first element that constitutes an internet client computing domain: the OS.

The PC and mobile Internet have converged on two platforms, each with one proprietary and one open-source operating system:

• Microsoft Windows and open-source Linux for the PC

• Apple iOS and Google Android for the mobile

This convergence can be simply explained by the need to provide an open software platform that hosts and runs several third-party applications upon which an entire ecosystem can be built. The ubiquity of those platforms ensures that deploying apps (and the web services they enable) can be achieved on a large scale and be economically profitable. Thus, the ecosystem can turn into a true industry involving semiconductor vendors, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), OS vendors, app developers, service providers, end users, etc.

To become a true industry with similar deployment and profitability levels, the IoT has to converge around OSs offering open software application platforms and enabling third-party app developers.

Let's look now at the second element that constitutes an Internet client computing domain: the internet client app.

The internet client app refers to the way the client accesses web content and services. This is an internet web browser on a PC and a store app on a mobile client.

Here again, the IoT has to offer a way to easily access dedicated web services to connected devices, whether they are used by a human (interactive devices with some human-machine interfaces) or not (machine-to-machine interfaces). This is the area where we can expect innovative technologies and new user experiences.

A Make vs. Buy Decision

As explored in a blog of ours, the technical and economic characteristics of the IoT make it impossible for existing PC or mobile solutions to be replicated and used as-is on diverse embedded computers with strong cost, power, and resource constraints.

This blog also explains that legacy technologies of the embedded world, real-time operating systems (RTOSs) in particular, are also too limited to ensure the advent of an IoT industry with large app developer communities and open application platforms.

Many companies have looked at the problem and came to the same conclusion. Device manufacturers face the traditional dilemma of a converging market that's not yet stabilized or hasn't seen the emergence of a dominant player: "Should I make or buy my IoT device platform?"

The make option can be achieved from two starting points: from scratch (developing everything) or from selected embedded legacy components. Re-developing everything from scratch would be the equivalent of creating something like Google Android (although it was built upon Linux and the Java technology). This may be affordable by companies the size of Google, but may not guarantee any profitability for an OEM whose business isn't correlated to the number of internet connections in the world.

One could start from some existing embedded legacy software components (drivers, RTOS, C compilers, C libraries, and stacks) and build its own device platform on top of it. Though possible, it may require an investment of probably 100 person-years with highly skilled engineers. Again, profitability could be achieved if the OEM's intent is to extend the reach of its embedded platform to the entire IoT domain. It seems difficult to justify a good return on investment (ROI) for the product families of a single OEM.

The buy option implies that an existing vendor offers a solution that corresponds to what the OEM is looking for, and that using its solution results in significant ROI compared to the make option. The vendor's offer makes all the difference in the world, so the question may not be "make or buy," but "make, buy from X, buy from Y, or buy from Z." As such, analysis should be conducted on a case-by-case basis with a vendor that offers a reasonable solution.

That said, it's generally simpler to project ROI for the buy option as the uncertainties of an existing solution are far fewer than a yet-to-exist one. So even following a make vs. buy analysis, one should consider that the buy option is much less likely to inflate beyond an early projection.

Conclusion

In the end, the make vs. buy decision comes down to the goals, resources, risk tolerance, and potential market of a given OEM. If one wishes to become the Android or Linux of IoT, where the product may occupy most or all IoT devices, there's merit to choosing make. However, one must have deep pockets and little fear of failure when going that route.

Though restricted to our own products, the make vs. buy analysis we run with customers has put buy out in front for every single customer we've talked to who hasn't already invested in their own platform (and it's typically the best choice for those that have, given future competition from a dominant vendor). Because a vendor platform's profitability doesn't depend on a single line of products, said vendors can charge much less than the development costs of producing a platform from scratch or even with legacy components (which, as we saw, saves less money than one would hope).

And there's more to the decision than cost. Time-to-market drops when large portions of your project have already been developed, tested, and validated elsewhere. Existing platforms include features that may otherwise not have been within the budget, adding value to final products. Moreover, unforeseen bottlenecks vanish when working with an integration team that has overcome a given problem beforehand. If your vendor is transparent and reputable, it's simply not worth the pain to reinvent the wheel.

Source: Deployment of an IoT Computing Platform: Make or Buy?

Professional Slang in Web Design

by Melissa Burns

Any professional community develops its own jargon, both to create easier and quicker ways to refer to complicated concepts and to set itself apart from the laymen, and web designers aren't an exception. What makes their slang so interesting is that this industry is relatively young and exists in close connection with other, older crafts like typography and visual design, sometimes heavily borrowing from them. Here are definitions and explanations of some web design terms, professionalisms and buzz

1. "Above the Fold"

This term serves as a reminder that web design didn't appear in isolation but to a huge degree evolved from typography – it comes from the old newspaperman speak, where it referred to the section on the front page above the fold where important news were printed as the reader's eye immediately fell on it. In web design, it denotes the upper section of the screen that a user sees immediately after opening the website, without having to scroll down.

2. Automagical

A blending of "automatic" and "magical", this term refers to an arrangement that has a highly complicated technological process under the hood, but this process is hidden from the end user, and the feature in question seems to be working as if by magic. Basically, modern web design agencies like MagicDust tend to make the creation of "automagical" websites their primary purpose.

3. A Bunch of Numpties

"Numpty" is a word originating from 1980s slang word "numps" of unknown origin, which means "a stupid person". It is unclear how this expression found its way into web design lingo, but in its context it means design elements that are clearly placeholders and have absolutely no user experience reason for being where they are. Think cheap websites decorating themselves with generic stock photos.

4. Feature Creep

Also "featuritis", beautifully described in a TED Talk by David Pogue. A tendency of a client to request additional features and/or expansion of the design when the project has been already paid for and is being worked on – usually such clients expect it to be done at no additional cost.

5. Graceful Degradation

Also sometimes called by a less poetic term "fault tolerance", it refers to the ability of a website's design to use the functions of new browsers while still retaining at least a part of its functionality when viewed via an older browser. In a more general sense, it denotes the ability of a website to work properly even if some part of it doesn't function in a particular browser.

6. Hero Image

Simply put, hero image is the main image on a homepage or a landing page – the thing that a visitor sees immediately after opening them. General idea to immediately grasp the visitor's attention and provide a aesthetically pleasing impression – you can read more in this fascinating article on Envato's blog.

7. Link Farm

Link farm is a group of websites created for the sole purpose of linking to each other in order to influence web search engines by spamming it with links (this process is referred to by another web design portmanteau term, "spamdexing"). Link farms usually don't contain any useful content whatsoever, and the term is understandably derogatory. The practice has been denounced by MOZ as early as 2009, but some unscrupulous search engine optimizers seem to have missed the memo even today.

8. Wireframe

Before a web designer starts working on the visual implementation of a website, he usually prepares a wireframe – a very basic and simplified drawing of a page's layout, most often with no design whatsoever. This schematic representation of a future website is used to give the designer an opportunity to work out the user interface without getting distracted by visual elements. Wireframing is an incredibly important stage of web development, and entire tools and software products are dedicated to this sole purpose (you may take a look at a set of them in this article in Creative Bloq).

As you may see, web design jargon is highly heterogeneous, combining elements borrowed from other visual arts professional speaks, technical terms and purely slang expressions that are just good at expressing things curtly and wittily.

About the writer

Melissa is a passionate blogger and journalist. She's also a freelancer and runs her content marketing agency Luckyposting.com.

Source: Professional Slang in Web Design

How to successfully build software at your firm

Successful, modern companies leverage software in almost every aspect of business. As technology advances, demand increases for intelligently designed and well-integrated solutions. Businesses gain a competitive edge by offering innovative web and mobile applications that streamline internal processes or provide value to customers.

However, not every company is configured to handle the complex nature of software development, even though they have a need for custom solutions. Be prepared for your next project by understanding these six issues and how to deal with them.

Identifying your users

Having a clear target audience is the cornerstone to successful software. Knowing how to group them into personas and then design software based on their needs is somewhat of an artform. Map their core needs to features and then integrate real user feedback into your design and development process.

Knowing what your users need

Software exists to help users accomplish a set of tasks, yet most users don't know what they need until they see it. Involving users from the earliest stages of conceptual design will help validate your business goals. Including users in acceptance testing helps catch issues and fill in gaps prior to launch. By implementing based on real-time user feedback, your product is more likely to achieve higher adoption rates upon initial release.

Understanding your integrations

New and existing technologies are expected to work together seamlessly, and third-party applications offer the promise of pre-packaged functionality without doing the heavy development lifting. By understanding your business needs and clearly defining your requirements, you can decide how and where to integrate technology components and reduce complexity.

Finding skilled team members

Each project demands skilled team members who understand the complex tools and environments required for implementation. Highly skilled resources are often difficult to find and tend to be costly. If you choose to hire a digital agency, be sure that their teams understand all facets of your business, requirements, and user experience needs.

Duplicating the production environment for QA

It is difficult and costly to create a controlled environment for testing that adequately mirrors the real world. It's impractical to think that all possible user environments can be tested prior to deployment. However, a skilled QA team can isolate critical testing needs while adhering to a budget.

Nailing down requirements

It's easy to get caught up in the creative nature of the design and development process. New ideas are great and should be captured and detailed, but scope must be fixed so budget can be met and team members can stay on pace. A solid project management team understands the difference between identifying requirements gaps and tacking on additional features. You need an expert Project Manager to avoid the latter.

From the planning stage to deployment, understanding and mitigating the issues of software development ultimately ensures a productive project experience for your team and a satisfying experience for your users. Before a single line of code is written or the first wireframe is drawn, make sure that your IT team or outsourced agency understands your business goals, project scope, and core functional needs of your users.

Source: How to successfully build software at your firm

This easy presentation software lets students focus on content, not design

Presentations are a key part of the academic world, and multimodal assignments are frequently assigned. In most cases, the teacher wants to know what the student knows and understands about the topic being presented. The knowledge of how to use the software and the design principles (i.e. their understanding of appropriate font size and colour, image placement and size, white space, etc.) is rarely reflected in the criteria/rubric used to grade the presentation. 

But while teachers sometimes say that they will only mark the content, the look and feel of the final product can still have an impact. 

And yet the amount of time needed to learn to use (and actually implement) the software and the design/layout of the presentation can be significant. Both of these things have a substantial effect on the quality of the final presentation. 

Students spend more time playing around with presentation software than you might think. Shouldn't they be using that time on the material itself? 

Imagine if there was presentation software that could give students and teachers what they want, while reducing time and energy spent on aspects of the task that don't impact the final grade. 

Imagine software that eliminated most of the design and technical knowledge while still producing a professional product — with a minimal learning curve. 

Students can spend as much time on the design and the software as the actual content.

One possible breakup of the knowledge required to create a multimodal presentation, and the time required to create the assignment. The proportions may vary, but will be significant for anything but a basic task.

 

Grades in many multimodal assignments are allocated solely to knowledge and understanding of the topic.

While software like PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi, Weebly and the like have tried to simplify these areas by the use of templates and similar features, software that automates the design process — called design automated software — can take the simplification process much further. 

Enter: design automated software.

So-called design automated software has an intuitive design process and a shallow learning curve — freeing up time that could be more profitably spent on other areas of study.

Key features of design automated software 

Design automated software takes the hassle out of creating presentations. Among other things, it has the following qualities: 

Automates photo cropping. Instead of using specialist image manipulation software all that has to be done is click on the areas that need to be focused on; the software then adjusts the image appropriately (for all screen sizes and platforms). 

Chooses suitable fonts, sizes and colours automatically making the decisions needed according to the colour palette chosen. 

Automatically makes text bold or italics, and adjust other features as needed. All the user needs to do is choose which text needs accent or emphasis and the app does the rest. 

Allows most types of media to be inserted easily, and has the ability to automatically create a variety of slide shows, photo albums and photo "comparisons", all beautifully presented and created simply and easily without any coding or technical knowledge. 

Has image search built in, with automatic suggestions for searches generated from the text in the presentation with Creative Commons licenses being the search default. 

Changes the design and/or layout of your presentation with the click of a button, with all of the design elements adjusted automatically so that the presentation remains well designed. 

Can import an existing PowerPoint presentation (and more), and can then work with the existing information and design elements so that the new presentation has only minor adjustments needed. 

Allows sharing and collaboration, with multiple authors able to edit the presentation in real time. 

Dynamically adjusts in size to suit the device, from smartphones to large screen computers. 

Design automated software will change the way presentations are produced. They will improve the look and feel of presentations while also allowing students and teachers to focus on the key element of what they are trying to achieve, namely to demonstrate and communicate information and knowledge. 

The forerunner of design automated software 

Sway by Microsoft is the forerunner in the field of design automated software. 

It does all of the things mentioned, and much more. It is web-based and has an intuitive interface. I recently had a sixth-grade student discover Sway. He explored by himself and had a presentation on an assigned task completed in record time. He then taught a few classmates, also in record time. All students found it easy to use. 

Sway is available free of charge online. It is "real" freeware; it is not supported by advertisements. It works across a wide range of platforms, from desktop computers to phones. A large number of user created examples are available on the site, as are tutorials. (This two and a half minute video overview is very informative.) 

Sway uses a lot of drag-and-drop 

Sway uses an intuitive "card" based interface. Simply drag the type of card you want from the list on the left to the work area. You can then click or drag elements like images onto the card and type text, etc.

Collaboration with others and social media sharing is easy.

Sway has a wide range of sharing options. Collaboration, with multiple authors editing a Sway in real time, is also possible.

Search for copyright-friendly images on file to easily add to presentations.

Find the best presentation theme in just a few clicks.

Changing the look of a presentation is as easy as choosing a colour scheme and style. Every part of the design change is done automatically. There is even a Remix button (at the top right) to let Sway choose an appropriate layout and design. 

The era of design automated software has arrived. Sway has already shifted the goal posts in this area. Students and teachers no longer need to struggle with technical concepts of design and specialist software in order to create presentations with a professional look and feel. They can instead now focus on the key elements of their task, namely the information and knowledge that needs to be conveyed within the presentation. 

This is technology living up to its promise — making tasks easier, more effective and more efficient. 

Peter West is an Microsoft Innovative Expert Educator and this article was originally published at http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/06/07/this-easy-presentation-software-lets-students-focus-on-content-not-design/  

Source: This easy presentation software lets students focus on content, not design