Adobe

Adobe (ⁱ/əˈdoʊbi/, UK /əˈdoʊb/,Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðoβe], from Spanish: mud brick, from Arabic) is a building material made from earth and often organic material. Most adobe buildings are similar to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world.

Description

Adobe bricks are most often made into units weighing less than 100 pounds and small enough that they can quickly air dry individually without cracking and subsequently assembled, with the application of adobe mud, to bond the individual bricks into a structure. Modern methods of construction allow the pouring of whole adobe walls that are reinforced with steel.

Strength

In dry climates, adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. Adobe buildings offer significant advantages due to their greater thermal mass, but they are known to be particularly susceptible to earthquake damage if they are not somehow reinforced. Cases where adobe structures were widely damaged during earthquakes include the 1976 Guatemala earthquake, the 2003 Bam earthquake and the 2010 Chile earthquake.

Adobe Systems

Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American transnational computer software company. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. Adobe has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more-recent foray towards rich Internet application software development. It is best known for Photoshop, the Portable Document Format (PDF) and Adobe Creative Suite, as well as its successor Adobe Creative Cloud.

Adobe was founded in February 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC in order to develop and sell the PostScript page description language. In 1985, Apple Computer licensed PostScript for use in its LaserWriter printers, which helped spark the desktop publishing revolution.

As of 2015, Adobe Systems has about 13,500 employees, about 40% of whom work in San Jose. Adobe also has major development operations in Newton, Massachusetts; New York City, New York; Orlando, Florida; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Lehi, Utah; Seattle, Washington; San Francisco and San Luis Obispo, California in the United States.