Adobe

There's a black hole at the Center of the Universe, and Adobe spokespeople say everything's just fine. Last Tuesday, just days after nearly 600 Adobe employees moved into their spiffy new Fremont office complex, company chair and CEO John Warnock announced from Adobe's San Jose headquarters that sales would fall short of Wall Street expectations. Third-quarter revenues of $225 million will be down slightly from last year's earnings. "These expected results are unacceptable," he said in a statement announcing an 8 percent­10 percent layoff companywide by the end of August. Three of the company's top executives, including CFO P. Jackson Bell, resigned. Adobe stock dropped nearly 20 percent.

"We're absolutely upbeat and enthusiastic about the changes," Adobe spokesperson Wink Grelis insisted in an interview last week. She said the "totally new reorganization" would streamline Adobe's marking and sales departments, ultimately speeding the development and delivery of popular products like PageMaker and Photoshop. Adobe staff in Seattle are mainly responsible for development of page layout and dynamic media for various products, technical support, and the publication of Adobe Magazine. Grelis said the layoffs would not "disproportionately" affect Adobe's Seattle contingent.