Ricky Liversidge, Director of Acrobat and Breeze Product Marketing, ADOBE.

NDTV: What does Adobe do to curb piracy in India?

Ricky Liversidge: Piracy in India has been on a decrease in the past five years. Adobe really works for a company called BSA which represents a lot of software manufacturers. And also one of the big things is we have to work with the government to try and help set up policies and the other thing is education- what people do not really understand is the effects of piracy on the industry. Obviously that has a big effect on India as Adobe has a big R&D center in India. Our commercial success depends upon how much we can invest by the R&D perspective. If as a trend India moves on with a business perspective anti piracy will naturally decrease. India is becoming more of a global hub and its business depends upon its relationships outside India. It is naturally on a decrease and probably looking through a Adobe perspective working through BSA, education and a lot of work with our government standards committee in various other key areas, it is probably the key to move forward.

NDTV: How important is India as a market?

Ricky Liversidge: India is one of our two declared emerging markets in the world. Eastern Europe is growing rapidly and we made significant increase in investments there; India from a business point of view is second of that. And we are investing in India to grow the market so we are investing in market resources and sales resources and one of our key goals there is to really open the channels. We as an individual company do not have the reach to go through the Indian channels so we need to open our channels. So from a business point of view India is definitely important to us. We also look at India for not only the business it can generate on its borders but the influence it has on other markets. You probably know that we have a big development center in India of Adobe with about 1400 people working here from a development perspective. They are also adding a lot of innovation to Adobe technology and also the products that we deliver. But also as an out sourcing phenomenon, India is very important from that aspect and much more. Just take something like animation- much more animation is getting outsourced into India. The big challenge lies in bringing about the supply, which further depends on the talent pool of the people base. One of the stats of that market is that only 10,000 people are currently employed in that market but it is a rapidly growing market that will grow up to 300,000 people but where is the talent base going to come from, probably they would come from the universities but a lot of training will go into that.

NDTV: So, India is a business hub? What about consumer hub?

Ricky Liversidge: From a consumer hub perspective some of the things we have been doing are a lot of business and consumer barriers are overlapping these days- people consume information when they are home or when they are traveling or at work and that could be consumer information or business intended information. There is a population of 1.5 billion people in India and that is a big consumer market and one of the things what we are trying to do at Adobe is development of the mobile market, people will consume information on the move that is going to grow rapidly over the next few years. So I think looking at it from a consumer perspective and that has a big effect on Adobe because most companies want to get through to that consumer they want to get information through to that consumer and also need to establish a relationship with the consumer. They want that consumer to engage and interact with the services and the information that the company provides- that is really important. So I think from a consumer perspective things like mobile, online and broadcast that drives the creative market- that is where Adobe has really invested in India.

NDTV: Consumption enough in India? Will it be a consumption base or a business hub?

Ricky Liversidge: I think India has all the true potential as a consumer base. Mobile devices, broadband penetration, advertising rates growing the need for manufacturers to cater to the consumer base that is growing. For eg. if the overall market is growing by 61 per cent from an advertising perspective then, the need is to have so much talent to be able to provide that, that would mean the doubling of media agencies so the whole market will be driven by the consumer consuming this content and manufacturers really fighting for dominance and presence within the market- it is like this competitive market that drives such a thing.

NDTV: Could you elaborate the mobile market as a platform?

Ricky Liversidge: The way Adobe fits into that is a lot of content providers, manufacturers, advertisers, understand that the mobile device will be a key way to interact; the frustration has been how to get information in an engaging manner to the user. We know static media has a place but it is not enough and how do we deliver rich, interactive engaging content. Adobe through the acquisition of macro media has access to a platform that has been built over a number of years. Flash from a PC perspective is present on 98 per cent of the devices but from a mobile perspective we are on 450 million devices. What flash offers is device independence; important thing about that is there are a lot of operating systems and lot of handsets and being able to cross platform across that network is really important. What we have done now is that flash allows the content providers to drive the rich interactive content to the mobile device. Think about MTV, from the audience perspective they have a very young audience, very mobile centric, they want to be able to get more interactive, more content and build business models around mobile devices. By using flash we are using the latest technology and what we are building on is the rich Internet application. This was coined by macro media but Adobe is working on something called air -this gets the power of the web, immediacy of the web, power of the desktop together for live wire applications and which can be driven to be brought to the mobile device. The important people will be the designers and developers where they both crossover and work together. Here in India 70 per cent of the people develop for the web and that is a huge influence in the overall market. So those are the things Adobe is doing and that is why Adobe has invested in India as a market not only from a business perspective but the effect it will have as a global market.

NDTV: How will the mobile content generation work in India?

Ricky Liversidge: We have just come back from the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona and spoke a lot about advertising point view. To be perfectly honest, advertising will go where the content providers will go. We have been working a lot with NASDAQ, AOL- these are the people who want to provide their content from an advertising point of view; it all depends on the business model. One of the things we have been working on is Air; The first application we will develop will be Adobe media player. Because from the perspective of a delivery of video online, the market is very fragmented today- flash provides the platform to actually deliver video. None of us want to download 20 megabyte players. We want light weight devices. Air allows us to do that and allows developers to skin that if your company wants to provide its content online through flash, using Adobe you can actually skin the player with all your branding so your customers know where all that content is coming from. So that is a way to take the immediacy and flexibility and within that skinning of the application you can drive various advertising. So the important relationship with various media organizations is really about listening to your needs and understanding them. The advertising aspect of that is to be perfectly honest is behind the time we have started to see a really rich video but we are seeing the conventional advertising but what we are not seeing is the contextual advertising around the content. That is where the advertising is leading to.

NDTV: Do you think your product is being used to the maximum capability?

Ricky Liversidge: Obviously Adobe has a really big business. Adobe has asked how do we come up to the market because we are a big advertiser and we are a big marketing organisation and we focus our business on 5 key campaigns, 5 campaigns we drive globally. One of our key campaigns is the creative campaign- web products, video tools are all set within that campaign. As part of our overall marketing mix, something like our search video online, we tend to move on to something different. The important thing about search is something I can buy globally, it can have an impact worldwide. From a print perspective I have to buy region by region but Adobe hardly does any print advertising anymore. We have moved most of our advertising to online because it gives us more targeting response in return. Another one of our campaign is called 'Business never looked better' and that supports our acrobat business, life cycle business where we work with the government and enterprise and allows them to streamline the communication. There are two dynamics that work in a company business- one is company needs to take control of their content and the second is the work needs to take control over the content- those two things do not work together but Adobe is helping them take control over that and streamline that, they were helping government agencies to take citizens information and being able to communicate that across agencies or ministries and different departments. This is important to us for India as there is a huge creative base here and we see challenges in the market. The amazing thing is the re- keying of data and it is amazing to see how much data gets re-keyed due to technology within these industries- am sure it's going on India as much as it is going on in the US. The third thing is, Adobe is a commercial company we really like to invest in industries, education is really important to us. We have a global campaign around education helping the next generation creatives to become easy with our tools. Like our special initiative in India with NIIT so we are investing a lot in the education industry.

NDTV: Are the creative people trying to use the Adobe products to their potential?

Ricky Liversidge: Well, I think there is always a gap in some markets. The gap is bigger depending on the talent pool. Also depends on the development of the industry, creatives are best when they are challenged- I see them challenged both at the creative level and also production level. More the creatives get challenged in India to get away with the clutter of information, more they will use Adobe tools to actually breakthrough that gap. I think for the creative market in India the challenge is certainly on. You know, are all the customers getting creative value for all the Adobe products? I would say no but I think with training new people, not only training but putting that training into use would be good and that will develop the media market over the next 3 to 4 years. A lot of work for that to happen but the challenge is out there. So Adobe needs to meet the needs of the customers and what they have. But education also needs to be catered to and challenge the creatives are there too.

NDTV: In the next 2 years what will India get from Adobe- whether that will grow?

Ricky Liversidge: From a growth perspective anything over 50 per cent on a market that is on a reasonable side is very important to Adobe and India falls into that- we are certainly looking to grow on that percentage. Could it get to 100 per cent, not sure, but certainly over the 50 per cent mark and double that. That is really important to us. From an investment point of view we would double our advertising budgets, overall marketing budgets, we will invest in search, in web but also will invest in technology. We will continue to invest in channel growth- India is a big country, infrastructure is a challenge for us, so for channel partners to take us to the target markets and the entire market will be a challenge for us. Curbing piracy will also be one of the main points- we will make sure we can build a relationship with the government and the influencing bodies and education is really important for us. You know that's going to be an investment on dollar terms and marketing that is going to grow rapidly.