Adobe Receives Recognition from Frost & Sullivan for its Focus on Innovation and End User Needs in the Digital Rights Management Market

Palo Alto, Calif. — June 19, 2006 — Frost & Sullivan selected Adobe Systems Incorporated as the recipient of the 2006 Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Differentiation Innovation in recognition of its ability to meet the demands of a very dynamic market with a product that not only gives Adobe a competitive advantage but also offers customers a unique interoperable solution.

Adobe’s contributions to the market not only include the Adobe® Reader® and market-leading creative tools such as Adobe Photoshop®, Adobe Premiere®, and Adobe InDesign®, but also technologies such as the Adobe LiveCycle® Policy Server that have redefined the parameters for information exchange.

In addition to enabling access control and permission assignments to documents, Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server allows the owner to control the expiration of the document or even revoke it, making it unavailable irrespective of the number of copies that were made; even if it was burned on a compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM).

“Adobe has been smart in understanding when to devote internal resources for developing technologies in-house and when it is more prudent to buy an existing technology from the market,” says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Zippy Aima. “This is best exemplified by its acquisition of Macromedia, which has given the company more ammunition in its arsenal of products.”

Adobe recently acquired Navisware’s DRM technology to enable Adobe LiveCycle Policy Server to support native office productivity documents as well as computer aided design (CAD) documents.

“Combining the capabilities of Navisware in Adobe’s existing ecosystem has lead to the design of a comprehensive enterprise rights management (ERM) solution for customers who cringe from having to buy multiple DRM solutions to support multiple file formats,” notes Aima. “With the further acquisition of FileLine DRM technology, the capabilities of Policy Server have been extended to enable the solution to protect critical business documents irrespective of the storage format and independent of whether the information transaction takes place inside or outside of the firewall.”

Considering that the lack of interoperability is a key issue in the DRM market, the integration between Policy Server and FileLine DRM technology will give customers across all verticals a specialized solution that can work in their existing infrastructure and meet business goals by providing persistent protection to sensitive and confidential content.

Adobe’s efforts have led it to be a close third in the highly fragmented ERM market with the promise of substantial growth going forward. In recognition of Adobe’s contribution to the market and the needs of its clients, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present Adobe with the 2006 Product Differentiation Award for the world digital rights management market.

Each year Frost & Sullivan presents this Award to a company that has best demonstrated the ability to develop and/or advance products with more innovative capabilities than competing vendors and products. This Award recognizes the company’s successful adoption of new or existing technology that has become a part of its well-designed product family. Such innovation is expected to significantly contribute to the industry in terms of product performance and degree/rate of technical change.

“Consistent to our commitment to innovation and customers, we aim to provide an interoperable, persistent and comprehensive enterprise rights management solution and set the standard for information assurance,” said John Landwehr, Director of Security Solutions & Strategy, Adobe Systems Incorporated. “We are honored that Frost & Sullivan has recognized our innovation and contributions in the DRM market.”

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.





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