Eyeballing Microsoft

Business Today, December, 2007 by Kapil Bajaj; Manu Kaushik; Saumya Bhattacharya; Shalini S. Dagar; Rahul Sachitanand

Eyeballing Microsoft

Nearly a decade after joining adobe, Shantanu Sarayen, the company's India-educated President and coo, has been elevated to the top job at the desktop software publishing company. A graduate in electronics engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad, Narayen, 44, has been at the centre of Adobe's expansion, most notably its $3.4-billion deal for Macromedia last year. Now, Narayen will have his hands full not just growing his business, but also keeping a guarded eye out for Microsoft, which has been slowly moving into this market. "Around 98 per cent of computers (with an internet connection) run our Flash software and we're confident of maintaining our lead over the competition," Narayen had told bt. Happily for him, India has evolved into a key...