Mountain View, CA – Adobe Systems has said it will shutter its research and development center in China because of what the US software giant says are the country’s “increasingly unfavorable” business conditions.
The Beijing facility opened its doors on October 2008 with more than 300 people involved in developing software products specifically designed for the Chinese market.
The process of closing down the center will reportedly continue through the end of the year.
Lay-offs have already started with about 300 people likely to face job cuts. Some 30 employees, the company said, will be relocated to the company’s headquarters in Northern California or to branch offices in India.
“We are committed to China as a long-term market, and will continue our sales presence nationally as always,” the company said in a statement released to the press.
The move, it said, “will not affect Adobe’s overall level of investment in R&D and is not an indication of financial performance in China or worldwide.”
Adobe did say it would, however, maintain its Chinese sales offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong.
The Silicon Valley-based company is just one of several US-based high-tech firms that have come under increasing scrutiny by the Chinese government over allegedly illegal business practices.
Microsoft and Qualcomm are currently being probed, while Adobe recently had its office in Beijing raided by Chinese officials as part of an “anti-monopoly investigation” aimed at its ‘Office’ suite of programs and ‘Windows’ operating system, which is used on the vast majority of computers in China.
The head of the government agency investigating Microsoft for what it calls “monopoly actions” said last month that the probe includes the way the US giant distributes its media player and browser.
Speculation by industry analysts draws a connecting line between the investigations by Beijing and the US government’s indictment earlier this year of five members of a Chinese military unit for allegedly hacking into the computer systems of several major US companies to steal trade secrets – a charge the Chinese government vehemently denies.
09/29/2014