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Adobe Transforms MAX Into the Creativity Conference

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By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

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Adobe Transforms MAX Into the Creativity Conference

New Focus for Event Explores the Ideas, Inspirations and Technologies that Push the Boundaries of Creative Thinking

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Adobe Systems Incorporated (NAS: ADBE) today announced featured luminary and breakout sessions at Adobe MAX, The Creative Conference, taking place May 4-8, 2013 at the Los Angeles Convention Center and Nokia Theatre. The four-day event includes a packed lineup of keynotes, luminary sessions, training workshops and sneaks presented by the best in the industry, including graphic designer and illustrator Paula Scher, multimedia artist Phil Hansen, designer and writer Rob Legato, photographer Erik Johansson and EA chief creative officer Richard Hilleman.

MAX will convene more than 5,000 industry leaders to exchange ideas, get inspired and explore how creativity is changing the world. The conference will feature highly anticipated MAX keynotes hosted by Adobe’s senior vice president and general manager of Digital Media, David Wadhwani that will explore the dramatically changing creative process and major advancements in technology. Adobe is expected to unveil a milestone update to Adobe® Creative Cloud™ at the event. Each full conference pass includes a one year Adobe Creative Cloud membership.

Luminary Sessions

Luminary sessions will expose attendees to new ways of thinking about creative projects and some of most innovative, boundary-pushing, experimental work out there. Highlighted luminary sessions include:

Redesigning the MAX Identity

In reimagining every aspect of Adobe MAX, the company challenged designers to rethink the MAX brand and design a new logo that embodied the new creative spirit of MAX. Top design …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Ford Focus Tops the World's Sales Charts

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By John Rosevear, The Motley Fool

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The 2013 Ford Focus. Photo credit: Ford Motor Company

All of the world’s 2012 new-car sales numbers are finally in and tallied, and it’s official: Ford‘s Focus was the world’s best-selling car last year.

The compact Focus beat out the longtime champ, Toyota‘s Corolla, thanks to strong sales around the world – particularly in China, where the new-generation Focus was launched to wide acclaim last spring.

Strong sales around the world
Every year, the respected auto industry analytics firm R. L. Polk compiles new-car registration data from every single country in the world. This takes a few months (which is why we’re hearing about this in April), but the company’s report is considered definitive.

Polk’s report for 2012 says that the Focus was the world sales champ, with a whopping 1,020,410 units sold. Ford attributed much of the Focus’s gains to big sales increases in both China and the U.S. (The Focus was also among Europe‘s best-selling cars, but Europe‘s economic woes hindered sales totals.)

Sales of the Focus here in the U.S. were up 40% in 2012, as the car was widely praised by reviewers for its solid feel and premium interior features. It has proven to be Ford’s best-ever competitor for the class-leading Corolla and Honda Civic. In fact, the quality of the Focus seemed to catch the two Japanese giants off guard, driving Honda to rush a redo of its Civic to market months ahead of schedule.

Big growth in China, but there’s a catch
But the big story for Focus last year was in China, and I should explain that there’s a bit of controversy here. Ford actually sells two different cars called “Focus” in China: The current global model as sold here in the U.S., called “New Focus” and positioned as a premium product, and the last-generation European-model Focus, called “Classic Focus” and sold at more of an entry-level price.

The New Focus was launched in China last spring and was a hit with China‘s auto critics, for much the same reasons that the car has done so well elsewhere. And it has clearly done well with consumers. But it’s hard to tell exactly how well it has done, because Ford rolls up the sales figures for the New Focus and the Classic Focus into one column labeled “Focus”. (I asked Ford for a breakdown of last year’s sales, but was told that the company doesn’t provide them.)

So when I say that sales of the Focus were up 51% in China last year, it’s likely true that much of that was due to the success of the new model, but I don’t know for sure.

The upshot: 2012 was great for Ford
But either way, there’s no question that the sharp-looking compact has been a huge success around the world for Ford.

And it’s not the only success, as there were two …read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Ford Races Forward in China

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By John Rosevear, The Motley Fool

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Ford has been spending big bucks to expand its lineup in China, and recent sales results suggest that Chinese consumers are liking what they’re seeing: The Blue Oval‘s sales through the first two months of 2013 were up 46% over year-ago totals.

That’s huge. How huge? It trounced market leader General Motors‘ 7.9% gain over the same two months – itself a good result for a period in which sales at rivals Toyota and Honda actually declined.

More to the point, it’s proof that Ford’s product strategy is playing quite well in China – and that bodes very well for the Blue Oval‘s ongoing expansion plans.

Big gains in a sluggish market
While most automakers report monthly sales results in the areas in which they do business, automakers doing business in China generally present their January and February results as a combined number. That’s because Chinese New Year, a week-long holiday celebration, sometimes falls in January (like in 2012) and sometimes in February (as it did this year) – making year-over-year monthly comparisons complicated.

But this year, despite losing a week of sales to the holiday, Ford’s Chinese operation still posted a sales gain of 7% in February that looks even better when you dig into the details.

Ford operates two separate joint ventures in China: Changan Ford Automobile, which produces familiar global Ford cars like the Focus, and a joint venture with Chinese truckmaker Jiangling Motors that produces Ford-branded commercial and government vehicles based on Ford’s Transit and E350 vans.

Of those two, Changan Ford is the more significant operation, outselling the truck venture by more than two to one. And its sales have been rising sharply lately – up 39% in February alone — as Ford brings more of its well-regarded global products to the Middle Kingdom.

Familiar Fords finding success in China
Ford introduced its current global Focus compact to China last spring, with a twist: It’s called “New Focus” and positioned as an upscale offering alongside the prior-generation (“Classic Focus“) model. It has proven to be quite popular, as the two Focuses have combined to become one of China’s best-selling nameplates.

The (New) Focus was the first of 15 new Fords destined to be launched in China by mid-decade, and its success promised good things for the models that followed. The latest of those is the Kuga SUV, a near-twin of the Escape SUV in the U.S. market. It made its Chinese debut early this year and appears to be competing well with its key local rivals, Volkswagen‘s Tiguan and Honda’sCR-V.

The market for SUVs in China has been strong in recent months, a bright spot amid sluggish growth in the overall automotive market. That strength hasn’t been lost on Ford, which is planning to expand its Chinese SUV lineup by two in the next few months: The EcoSport (a small inexpensive SUV based on the Fiesta) …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance