MadCap Software’s New Digs | More Adobe Layoffs

san diego,outsourcing,layoffs,la jolla,madcap flare,madcap feedback,madcap software,adobe robohelp,technical communication,technical writing,help authoring tools,hatt

MadCap Has Arrived: Blue Sky Ahead

This December 7th I had the opportunity to tour the new MadCap Software spaces located at 7777 Fay Avenue in downtown La Jolla.

Everybody loves La Jolla

With a great rock wall a few blocks down, my favorite secret snorkeling spot by the Cave House 3/4 of a mile away, and top surf within two miles all up and down the coast, most of the prior eHelp’ers I know are out taking advantage of the site location during their breaks or after work. Not to mention lunching at Sushi on the Rocks or fifty other four star spots.

Oh, and the La Jolla eye candy views and scenery is outstanding.

New Topic: Hey, check out the killer entry desk! Better even than at eHelp.

There’s an inside story on this furniture that’s pretty cool, but I’ll save that for another time.

Corporate Hat Trick: Happy employees, better furniture, bigger space

After getting a tour of the spaces I can honestly say that they have higher morale (if that were possible), plenty of room to grow, it didn’t break the bank, and great data connectivity. All are critical to a new company.

Moved yet actually saves money? Never play poker with Anthony O.

Rumor has it with everything acquired accounted for that the bottom line may actually have been affected POSITIVELY in this move. As I opined earlier, savvy timing by the big Three at MadCap might well have become their secret weapon.

Only Anthony (former eHelp CEO) Olivier could pull off making a dime into a quarter. I have to say I was impressed with his approach five years ago, the new office is a major coup.

That being said, it’s probably time for another San Diego Union-Tribune article on why that happened. I’m sure I couldn’t make it sound cool enough.

I was able to discuss a few things with some of the staff, both on the record and off the record.

PS: Don’t hold anything in my story against this guy, I don’t even know his name. He didn’t tell me anything. It’s just the only really decent pingpong table shot. Honest.

Well, here’s another pingpong shot of one of the Tech Support gurus. From outside the fishbowl glass. I didn’t ask him any questions either.

PS: Var, (MadCap’s Director of Technical Support) this pic was taken at lunchtime!

Adobe Lays Off Staff As MadCap Expands - Merry Christmas?!?

The big story of the day I visited MadCap I hadn’t heard until I arrived.

The San Diego Union-Tribune had just reported that Adobe was going to lay off an undetermined amount from their San Diego facility, obviously less than the last fifty employees.Talking with the MadCap staff about this new development was interesting.

Truly Bittersweet for the MadCap crew

Of course there was the professional rivalry and excitement about a competitor shedding employees, however to a person everyone I asked about it mentioned at one time or another that they were concerned about their friends who still worked there, and asked me if I knew if anyone we knew in common who was affected.

I was impressed about how they view their former eHelp’ers even as they compete with them. Everyone I spoke to was unanimous in expressing their concern for their friends and former colleagues so close to the holiday season having to now start looking for jobs.

Former eHelp’ers Scrooged

Raw Data from San Diego Union-Tribune, December 6 2007:

My thoughts:

That’s like… a reverse end of the year bonus? Of course I haven’t found out who was affected yet but ouch…

Dude, what heartless Grinch does that after an acclaimed 3rd quarter?!?

Writing’s on the wall when you have to attend midnight conference calls because the entire dev team for your product is based in Bangalore.

With gallows humor I jokingly predicted it back when the 3rd Quarter ADBE results were announced. From my analysis earlier this year:

If stock prices start slipping, where are they going to make their cuts? I am predicting that it’s now or never for RoboHelp; if they don’t perform by mid-2008, resources could be pulled off for other products that make a higher profit.

Well, I don’t know who was involved in this layoff cycle, but I do know that layoffs are great for the bottom line and Microsoft’s not releasing another Vista next year.

Even though they beat expectations by 21% a week after these layoffs, ADBE’s share price still fell. Had I been trading I would have sold the stock short and made money.

Maybe the SD office is the miner’s canary of the stock price at ADBE… Need more revenue just hatchet some more San Diegans.

This doesn’t mean that Adobe will lose money this upcoming quarter but they are tightening the belt for the next year. I’m not the only analyst (and certainly not a professional) who feels it’s going to be hard for ADBE.

So my opinion about selling ADBE short is starting to look verifiable. They can’t sustain those 3rd quarter results short of cutting back tremendously.

On the other side, cutting their RoboHelp brain trust and subject matter experts down to zero gives them little internal resources to fight off MadCap and other competitors. Maybe it is easy to be publishing software people will buy when you’re that big. Maybe innovation is really something that isn’t so critical, as long as you can copy the true innovators and out-market them.

Q: Where will Adobe’s innovation come from for their future RoboHelp / Tech Comm Suite product line?

Personally, I think this goes back to (my opinion) the unconcious Adobe strategy to offshore all assets. Eventually everyone not performing 80 hour workweeks will lose their jobs in San Diego in favor of India based talent.

Hopefully for those RoboHelp users still left, their product will continue well without a brain trust. It has for the last cycle. Not particularly impressed with the features in the RoboHelp Server 7, however it did get a mention in the podcast RJ did earlier this month.

I wish the old eHelp’ers at Adobe well, especially in not getting laid off just before Christmas.

Back to the MadCap visit

With all that said… prepare for the podcast series coming soon. Mike Hamilton gave me forty-five minutes of time and I’m still doing the editing.

Some of the podcast highlights, in no specific order:

MadCap vs Word: Is MadCap competing with Microsoft?

Blaze. Bigger than…?

MadCap’s User Community: What did you put into their food?

DITA.

Wikis in Corporations - (my viewpoint is well known).

Web 2.0 in Technical Communication.

History of 7777 Fay Avenue, the “new” (?) MadCap location.

Roadmap of what’s ahead.

More on workflow concepts & how they figure into product design.

How MadCap’s design process specifically supports their innovation (!!!)

And Mike H. puts on record MadCap’s goal of supporting Microsoft releases (such as Vista):

“Support the (Microsoft) product within thirty days of (its) release.”

“…if there’s a planned full version release it will be included in that release, otherwise existing users get a point release to support the new Microsoft version (…of Word, Vista, even Internet Explorer).”

Adobe can try to match that competitive advantage, but I doubt they will be able to withall the brains either getting canned or worrying about getting canned.

RJ Jacquez just keeps on rolling though. I’m going to start calling that guy Teflon; nothing sticks to him.

Good on ya, RJ. Glad your neck wasn’t on the block this time. According to my interview with Mike Hamilton, you and RoboHelp may have immunity from being voted off the island for quite some time.

I’m going to have to make a dinner bet with Mike about RoboHelp though. However, he’s the expert.