Tracing 25 incredible years of Adobe India
From a single-room feature-development center in 1997 to a dynamic global enterprise and the second-largest arm of Adobe in 2022 - Adobe India’s growth story is a spectacle of admirable hard work, exceptional talent, and, most importantly, a kind of passion that is almost infectious. It is one to be treasured as we hit the 25-year milestone, which is another opportunity to celebrate our massive contributions and incredible journey.
Adobe India founder Naresh Gupta laying the building foundation.
In this inspiring climb of 25 years, Adobe India has grown leaps and bounds with each accomplishment. From a team of 7 to a force of over 7000, from an engineering-only set-up to a global business hub, Adobe India’s portfolio has made inroads across the breadth of our products, services, and business operations, touching every aspect of the product and customer lifecycle today.
25 years ago, Naresh Gupta and his small but mighty team laid the foundation for Adobe India and embarked on this journey from a hotel room in Noida. They began as a tech start-up and operated as one. Energy, passion, and the ‘drive to make an impact’ are what drove technological breakthroughs and set Adobe India up for success.
Early years of Adobe India team.
As we reminisce on the important milestones in our journey, it is the consistent innovation and sharp execution that stands out. Even in the early days, the team was making significant contributions to flagship products like Acrobat, InDesign, and Photoshop Elements Starter Edition.
One of the earliest milestones was the successful development of the Quark Express converter by a team of young engineers in 1999. It was a defining moment for Adobe India - the task was critical for the 1.0 release of our flagship product, InDesign. Further breaking new ground, Adobe India created history in 2001 with the release of Adobe PageMaker 7.0, the first-ever large-scale software product to be shipped entirely from India.
With consistent value creation, Adobe India continued to expand its global impact over time.
“If we look back at the journey, handful of people started this journey in a small room to now, thriving as the largest part of Adobe outside of the US. It has been a story of steady growth, immense hard work and passion. People have over and over delivered what was asked of them, in addition to breaking new ground each time with product innovations.”
- Ashu Mittal
In 2004, Adobe’s print and publishing business, now called D-ALP, started taking shape in the region, making Adobe the first global tech company to run an entire business out of India. The D-ALP business is now one of Adobe’s oldest flagships and most profitable business units, being home to native technologies like Adobe Embedded Print Engine, which changed the fate of the print business, and products like Adobe Learning Manager, which expanded Adobe’s global footprint in the domain of e-learning.
Adding to this illustrious product portfolio are the 1.0 product releases by Adobe India over the years. The team started developing PDF readers for mobile devices as early as 1999 and went on to build our first PDF reader for smartphones and Adobe’s biggest app, Acrobat Reader. Over the years, the team made significant contributions to the Document Cloud portfolio including critical technologies like Scan and Create PDF and championed the move of Acrobat's core value proposition.
From evolution of the most loved Adobe apps in Document Cloud to the incubation of high-growth mobile businesses such as Illustrator on iPad, Photoshop Express, Lightroom Mobile, and Premier Clip in Creative Cloud, innovation from Adobe India moved the needle for our global business in many ways.
In Experience Cloud as well, seeds for products like Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), Adobe Journey Optimizer, Marketo Engage Dynamic Chat and services like AEM Assets, AEM Forms Conversion Service, were sown in India. Here we developed strong technical capabilities in machine learning and data science which further led to delivery of big global projects like the Adobe Campaign Relaunch, Journey Optimiser, AEM Cloud Service, AEP Sources, Flow Service, and Unified Search.
Each of these breakthroughs created strategic inlets for the business and significantly contributed to Adobe’s success and market leadership in different categories.
“What I’ve seen in my 23 years here, is that people go beyond without needing to be told so. I don't know whether it is the peers, the building, the brand, or the collective sense of purpose that we have shared since day 1, but this drive to deliver on commitments, whether it needs us to work on weekends or go beyond, is still as strong as it was 25 years ago. ”
- Rahul Vishwaroop
While the offerings expanded rapidly, so did the infrastructure. Adobe India’s growth pace constantly challenged its space allocation, which was always a good problem to have. We initially started and grew our base in Noida and in 2005, extended to Bangalore with the acquisition of Macromedia, and now, we are all set to inaugurate another major site in the city next year.
Today, Adobe India has evolved as a versatile global establishment with its impact and expertise spanning across business dimensions.
Teams in India are leading strategy, and engineering for Adobe’s flagship businesses like the Document Cloud and key products like Illustrator, Elements, Adobe Campaign, and AEM Guides, among others. Owing to the 100+ patents issued every year, Adobe India has also emerged as the epicentre of product innovation, central to Adobe’s future.
Further, the thriving sales ecosystems and customer-facing teams in India have evolved as big-wheels for markets and Adobe clients across the world. India is also at the heart of Adobe’s internal service machinery as a global fulcrum of financial and technical services expertise.
As we piece together the many things that have shaped the fate of this journey, an enabling culture, and strong leadership are what stand out. These force multipliers created an environment of collective growth, carried the team through testing times and fostered a unique spirit that still permeates through the organization.
“I joined Adobe 15 years back had the good fortune of partnering with the most amazing colleagues towards building market leading products, solving highly valuable business problems for our global customers. I am humbled to have played a part in shaping Adobe India’s amazing journey. ”
- Vikas Yadav
With this energy, Adobe India celebrates 25 incredible years and looks forward to the many more milestones to come!