Adobe CFO: Flash Debate Won't Hurt Sales

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Near the center of the smartphone OS war sits Adobe Systems(ADBE), the 28-year old Silicon Valley software firm whose multimedia products, namely Flash, help developers create cutting-edge apps.

Adobe has been the subject of many recent headlines, first for getting slammed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs and, more recently, on rumors that Microsoft would take over the company.

Adobe CFO Mark Garrett

To dispel some of the talk, TheStreet caught up with Adobe's CFO Mark Garrett earlier this week at a New York City investor conference. Garrett gave us his thoughts on the company's push into the mobile app space, acquisition rumors and the debate over Flash.

The transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

TheStreet: Adobe has been making a huge push into the app space, announcing last month that its AIR software would be available for mobile, tablets and TVs. What type of revenue opportunity do you see from expanding Adobe's scope?

We're going to be on millions and millions of Google(GOOG) Android devices, as well as other operating systems once they're launched. We're becoming the platform of choice for global developers because we make content distribution seamless. If you're trying to create content for a PC, TV, mobile phone or a slate device, we help you create it once, and then deploy it everywhere.

Mobile is just another platform, and it's going to be one of the biggest ones -- obviously. In the short term, we'll sell more development tools. Developers making content for mobile will buy our applications and our software packages.

Is Microsoft's(MSFT) Windows Phone 7 a platform you're focused on?

We're going to focus on all of the non i-Device manufacturers.

Adobe is slowly transitioning its business model from one where creative business was the primary growth driver to one that's more enterprise-focused. Why is this transition is taking place? What are some of the key initiatives or products the company is launching in line with this shift?

The big transformation for us is moving from a shrink-wrap desktop company to a major player in the enterprise space, and there are three major trends that we're going to capitalize on.

One is the trend towards multi-screen devices and our ability to migrate more and more content to these types of devices. The second is data-driven marketing -- the ability for people to really understand where to put their marketing dollars and how to analyze and optimize that market spend.

The third big trend is the consumerization of IT. Consumers use applications like iTunes at home, but then use these very archaic applications with terrible interfaces at the office. People don't want that anymore ... they want all interfaces to like Facebook or iTunes. We're really looking at customer experience management where we can help make the interface to application much more design-oriented, which is where our strength is.