Adobe Systems’ fiscal Q2 numbers are in – quarterly revenue for the Adobe Marketing Cloud suite was $283 million, a 23% increase year-over-year. Adobe expressed strength in its outlook for Marketing Cloud, targeting 20% year-over-year future revenue growth.
Adobe’s total fiscal second quarter earnings were strong, coming in at $1.07 billion with non-GAAP earnings at 37 cents per share, slightly up from fiscal year 2013 when total quarterly revenue just broke $1 billion.
The company cited an uptick in Adobe Marketing Cloud bookings in Q2 with Adobe Experience Manager (Web content and digital asset management) leading the pack with regard to product adoption.
“Every enterprise is faced with the task of re-platforming their Web infrastructure to create personalized experiences [as well as creating] a first-class mobile experience,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe Systems, on the earnings call. “Marketing Cloud integration with Creative Cloud and DPS (Digital Publishing Suite) allows us to target… the C-suite with mission-critical solutions.
Narayen spoke of the head-scratching deal that arose from the Adobe Summit in March when the company revealed that enterprise stalwart SAP would begin reselling Marketing Cloud products. During Tuesday’s earnings call, more came to light around the early-stage partner deal.
“Next year and long term, you can expect to see [our] companies jointly come to market as commerce becomes a bigger player for SAP and hybris,” he said. Adobe’s chief made note of a “real-time integration” between the Adobe Marketing Cloud and SAP’s high-speed data infrastructure HANA. “You are seeing our companies going into [conversations with] joint customer accounts, but it’s early yet. We are hard at work educating their sales force on our offering.”
That said, a continual emphasis of Adobe’s (and SAP’s, according to its CMO Jonathan Becher) is maintaining a vibrant and growing partner ecosystem. “A very substantial portion of our Marketing Cloud has a partner element to it,” he added.
In terms of how Adobe Marketing Cloud is being sold and adopted within the enterprise ranks, Narayen said there’s interest in tapping unified workflows. “There’s no question when we look at new deals, we’re selling the combination of the entire content lifecycle,” he said.
This means, increasingly, Adobe Marketing Cloud integrations are occurring in conjunction with Creative Cloud and DPS deals, as more CMOs and marketing organizations link digital asset management to campaign output. Narayen alluded to a series of Creative Cloud innovations (both verticalized offerings and mobile apps), which will occur Wednesday.
