Adobe Acquisition Bolsters Mobile App Development Capabilities

The acquisition comes just weeks after Adobe said it would focus all its development efforts on its cloud-based Creative Cloud applications and halt new development of the boxed version of its Creative Suite application set.

In a notice posted on Thumb Labs' website, co-founders Jared Verdi and Rich Kern confirmed the New York-based company is being acquired by Adobe. "At the end of this month the Thumb Labs team will begin focusing our mobile talents on a united mission to empower the creative world."

An Adobe spokesman Thursday morning confirmed the acquisition, but declined to comment further and terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

In December, Adobe acquired Behance, an online social media platform that creative professionals use to showcase and share their work. The three-year-old Thumb Labs had a tight relationship with Behance, including building the first official application for the platform, according to the posting from Verdi and Kern.

They indicated that going forward, their work would be closely tied to Behance, as well as with the one-year-old Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes the company's flagship Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Illustrator applications. "We are looking forward to contributing to these efforts, as Behance's vibrant community becomes more deeply integrated into Adobe's tools," they wrote.

PUBLISHED ON MAY 23, 2013