With its reputation for voracious, big-money acquisitions and hard-fought mergers, Silicon Valley is used to surprise deals. That has not stopped many observers, however, from being left puzzled by American software maker Adobe's unexpected move to buy online measurement company Omniture for $1.8bn (£1.09m).
Omniture, which is based in Utah and offers a suite of products that allow website owners and marketers to monitor the way people use the internet, may seem a strange fit for the company best known for programs like Photoshop.
Indeed, the news shocked many technology industry insiders - especially as it came hard on the heels of the news that Adobe had suffered a 29% decline in profits over the same time last year. But despite questions about the potential for crossover between the two companies, Adobe chief executive Shantanu Narayen insisted that the deal was a "game-changer" that made sense for the veteran Californian business.
"We will enable advertisers, media companies and e-tailers to realise the full value of their digital assets," he said, adding that incorporating Omniture's products would allow them to "close the loop" for customers who use Adobe software to build their websites and online advertising campaigns.
Adobe is one of the world's biggest software companies, employing more than 7,000 workers out of its headquarters in San Jose. While the company is probably best known for desktop programs such as Photoshop and Acrobat, it has been gaining greater influence on the web in recent years.
Its Creative Suite product now contains a number of tools for building web content, and since 2005 - when it bought Macromedia for $3.4bn - it has also owned the popular Flash multimedia platform: now the de facto choice for online video, games and advertising.
Despite this, however, some were still left scratching their heads about precisely how the two companies would come together.
"I don't really see the synergy in the deal," said Eric Peterson of research and consulting group Web Analytics Demystified. "But I admit that I love Adobe and so I'm willing to be surprised. I think of Adobe as a software company for creative types; Omniture sells software-as-a-service to analytical types. These are different business models and very different customers."
Others pointed out that owning Omniture will allow Adobe to have a complete set of tools for website production - allowing customers to design, build, publish and monitor websites within a single system.
"This acquisition has the potential to embed measurement technologies into a burgeoning landscape of interactive media," said Forrester analyst John Lovett.
"Adobe's content creation tools are widespread and this acquisition now provides the opportunity for both developers and content creators to use a measurement tool that is inherent to the development platform."
That could be an important for Adobe as it seeks to mitigate waning take-up of its expensive desktop software business. CS4, the latest version of its suite of programs, received a lukewarm reception when it was released last autumn - perhaps partially due to the economic downturn.
However Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdry said that the decision is underpinned by a more systemic problem than could simply be blamed on the recession - with customers increasingly looking to powerful free applications as a replacement for high-cost professional-level packages like Photoshop.
"Their Creative Suite is decline, and there's no way to organically revive it," he told Forbes. "People believe software tools need to be free, and the market is saturated."
