Adobe Guidance, Another Pound of Flesh (ADBE, AAPL, MSFT)

Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ: ADBE) gave decent earnings today but its guidance is leaving something to be desired. Revenue was up 10% to $1.124 billion and earnings on a non-GAAP basis were $0.60 per share. Thomson Reuters had estimates of $0.59 EPS and $1.11 billion in sales.

Again, guidance is the issue. Adobe is targeting third-quarter revenue of $1.075 billion to $1.125 billion, with non-GAAP earnings of $0.56 to $0.61 per share, versus Thomson Reuters targets of $0.61 EPS and $1.13 billion in revenue.

For this fiscal year, Adobe narrowed revenue growth to a range of 6% to 7%, versus its prior target range of 6% to 8%. Thomson Reuters is looking for about 6.6% growth as of now. The software outfit sees non-GAAP earnings of $2.40 to $2.46 per share versus its prior targeted range of $2.38 to $2.48 per share and versus a Thomson Reuters target of $2.44 per share.

One has to wonder that, with all of the traffic coming from iPhones and iPads, just how much this war with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) in Flash versus HTML5 is hurting the company. This is something that consumers have been far too “Apple-biased” on, because if it had been Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) they would have screamed bloody murder. This fight is why the videos and presentations on so many websites are not viewable on an iPad and it has cost website and content creators endless millions of dollars because of Apple’s harsh stance against Flash.

Adobe closed up 0.8% at $32.89 on the day, but shares are down 4.6% at $31.36 in the after-hours session.

JON C. OGG