Adobe Systems Inc., the world’s biggest maker of graphic-design programs, reported a bigger profit than analysts estimated after the company cut jobs and a slump in orders eased.

Excluding some costs, fourth-quarter profit was 39 cents a share, the company said today in a statement. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey had estimated 37 cents on average for the period, which ended Nov. 27. A sales forecast for next quarter also topped projections.

Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 software, released during the height of the financial crisis last year, is now beginning to attract more buyers, said Sasa Zorovic, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Boston. The company is counting on its next version of the software, due next year, to trigger a surge of orders.

“The fact that CS4 is doing better than we thought is surprising,” Zorovic said. He advises investors to buy Adobe shares, which he doesn’t own. “A lot of that has to do with how conservative they were in their earlier guidance.”

Adobe was little changed in late trading. The shares, up 71 percent this year, rose 58 cents to $36.36 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Profit Forecast

Excluding some costs, profit will be 34 cents to 39 cents a share this quarter, Adobe said. Sales will be $800 million to $850 million. Analysts estimated profit of 37 cents and revenue of $767.5 million.

Sales declined 17 percent to $757.3 million last quarter, the San Jose, California-based company said. Analysts had estimated $741.2 million.

Adobe announced plans to cut 680 jobs last month, or about 9 percent of its global workforce. That came on top of a 9 percent reduction at Omniture Inc., which the company acquired for $1.8 billion in October. That deal lets Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen expand into software for measuring the effectiveness of online advertising.

Because of the acquisition expenses and severance costs, the company posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $32 million, or 6 cents a share, compared with a profit of $245.9 million, or 46 cents, a year earlier.

Creative Suite

Narayen, 46, is working to boost profit and enter new markets after many of Adobe’s customers put off upgrading to the last version of Creative Suite, a collection of design programs that includes Photoshop and Illustrator. The creative business accounted for 58 percent of total revenue last year.

Creative Suite 4 debuted just as the recession deepened last year. Adobe’s customers, including advertising agencies and publications, curbed spending because there was less demand for marketing. U.S. ad spending fell 2 percent in the first nine months of 2009, according to Nielsen Co.

Investors are now looking for a boost from version 5 of the software, which they expect Adobe to release before June, said Patrick Walravens, an analyst with JMP Securities LLC in San Francisco.

“They are seeing a little better selling environment for the creative suite before CS5,” said Walravens, who has an “outperform” rating on Adobe’s shares. “That’s likely to make people even more optimistic on CS5.”

source:bloomberg