Adobe Names Abhay Parasnis as CTO and Senior VP of Platform Technology & Services

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Press release from the issuing company

Seasoned Technologist to Drive Strategy and Architecture for Company’s Cloud Platforms

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Adobe today named Abhay Parasnis as chief technology officer and senior vice president of platform technology and services. Parasnis will drive Adobe’s technology strategy, architecture and innovation roadmap for its cloud services, focusing on integration of its three cloud services; providing a consistent customer experience via the cloud; and enabling the company’s cloud-based go-to-market strategies.

As the majority of Adobe’s business has moved to a cloud- and services-based model – including its flagship offerings Creative Cloud, Adobe Marketing Cloud, and most recently Adobe Document Cloud – the opportunity to drive a more integrated and scalable architecture has become a key initiative for the company.

“Abhay brings a powerful combination of technical credentials and operational experience to this new CTO role,” said Shantanu Narayen, Adobe’s president and CEO. “Our cloud platforms are the foundation for our next phase of innovation and growth as a company, and Abhay is the ideal candidate to lead this initiative.”

Parasnis brings nearly 20 years of experience in the software industry. Most recently, he was president and chief operating officer of venture-funded enterprise mobility leader Kony. He previously held a variety of enterprise technology, platform and cloud roles at companies including Microsoft, i2, Oracle and IBM.

“Adobe has set the standard on how to successfully shift to a cloud-based business while delivering great innovation for customers,” said Parasnis. “Adobe’s cloud initiatives are dramatically re-shaping how content is created, measured and consumed, which is unique in the software world and a great technical challenge. I’m excited to dive in and make great things happen.”

Parasnis holds a bachelor’s degree in electronics and telecommunications from the College of Engineering Pune, and holds more than 20 patents spanning enterprise and consumer Internet technologies. For more information, see the blog Q&A with Parasnis.

Discussion

By Dustin Andrews on Jul 22, 2015

Hopefully he will find a way to reign in the rising costs of a necessary evil. The only thing that keeps the subscription model going is the fact that everyone is set in their ways and as soon as someone cracks that egg Adobe may be in some deep trouble. I give it a few more years at least until the current crop of high school kids are out - the schools cannot afford licenses anymore and as a result students are being taught using alternative software.

As a current user I am turned off by their programmers and designers, who keep tinkering with code and layouts that are not broken and continue to avoid problems that have existed since CC began (like stalling, missing options, and removing prior functionality that I have to add back in {see Bridge export}) . Color me not impressed, but locked in as most of my documents have been built using their products.