Adobe signs chip supplier Qualcomm for marketing tech software

By Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) – Adobe Inc said on Thursday it had signed a deal with semiconductor Qualcomm Inc as a customer for its cloud-based marketing software.

Once best known for tools like Photoshop used to create websites and digital marketing materials, Adobe has expanded its business to include software for managing those materials and tracking how well they work at bringing customers in the door.

The subscription-based marketing software helped Adobe become one of the few software companies founded in the 1980s to navigate the transition to the modern cloud era and has helped nearly double its revenue since 2018.

In Qualcomm’s case, the deal to use Adobe’s software comes as the San Diego, California-based semiconductor company is expanding its business from selling mobile phone chips into selling computing chips for cars, drones and other applications.

That means that Qualcomm is trying to court customers in a variety of industries. One part of the company’s website might need to show Android software developers how to work with Qualcomm’s latest mobile phone chips, while another part of its website might need to have a portal where engineering teams automotive companies can order test systems for developing self-driving cars.

The Adobe software aims to help Qualcomm keep tabs on those elements of its website and tweak them to help better draw in each set of customers.

“Whether a customer is buying a connected device or the cutting-edge chips inside, everyone now expects to have a brand experience that is captivating, connected and relevant,” Don McGuire, Qualcomm’s chief marketing officer, said in a statement.

The companies did not disclose the value of the deal.

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)