Adobe Reaches for the Cloud -- Ahead of the Tape

By Dan Gallagher 

The time is rapidly approaching when Adobe Systems will have to show its investors the money.

Adobe has been a company in transition for the last couple of years as it tried to follow the rest of the corporate software industry in offering cloud-based subscription services. That should make it less dependent on traditional software licensing.

As a result, investors will likely view results due Thursday through this prism. The company's performance for the fiscal fourth quarter ended Nov. 28 should be an important step in Adobe's transformation.

Wall Street is projecting a record number of new subscribers to the Adobe Creative Cloud platform. The company itself has said that it expects that number to come in north of the 502,000 additions it reported in the previous period. Revenue for the quarter is expected to be around $1.06 billion, up 2% year over year, while earnings per share are expected at 30 cents, down two cents from a year earlier.

As other software makers have discovered, though, transitioning to a cloud-based business model can come with some short-term costs. Companies usually take a hit to sales in exchange for subscription deals that spread revenues out over a longer period. So long-term growth for Adobe's Creative Cloud and its newer, smaller Marketing Cloud platform are key to the company's outlook.

Adobe has set some high bars that it will have to clear on those fronts. The company has projected earnings per share of about $2 for fiscal 2015. That would represent a gain of more than 60% from the prior fiscal year based on current estimates. Meanwhile, Wall Street currently projects revenue growth of 19% for fiscal 2015, which would be Adobe's best showing in five years.

That may be achievable, but it isn't certain. The trouble is that investors appear to have assumed it is, assigning the stock a cloudlike multiple of about 42 times forward earnings. And Adobe's share price has beaten the Nasdaq Composite Index by about 12 percentage points over the last 12 months.

Adobe's investors are paying up now in hope of getting paid back later. But that payback date is approaching fast. It won't be enough then to keep saying the check is in the cloud.

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