Adobe To Lay Off 9 Percent Of Workforce

Citing a need to restructure for 2010, Adobe Systems on Tuesday reported that it will lay off about 680 workers, or 9 percent of its global workforce. The San Jose, Calif.-based software vendor currently has more than 7,000 employees following a December 2008 elimination of about 600 positions.

Adobe, maker of Photoshop, Illustrator and rich Internet application platforms like Flash, said in regulatory filing that the new round of layoffs only affects employees who were with the company before its recent $1.8 billion acquisition of Omniture, an Orem, Utah-based Web analytics company. The two companies struck a merger deal in September.

The software company has felt the pain of the recession as advertising and marketing spending fell off in the past year, translating into less demand for Adobe products used by media and Internet professionals. Adobe reported falling year-over-year revenue and a 29 percent earnings decline in its most recently completed fiscal quarter.

Meanwhile, Sun Microsystems has reportedly told Colorado state labor officials that it plans to lay off 128 workers at its Broomfield, Colo. campus in January. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company continues to see an acquisition bid by Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle stalled by European Union regulators over antitrust concerns.

The Oracle-Sun merger has already been approved by U.S. regulators.