Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen to Knowldege@Wharton:

We have a whole bunch of "point product" competitors: Quark against InDesign; CorelDraw is still alive against Illustrator; Global Graphics against PostScript; Macromedia Dreamweaver against GoLive.

But when I think about competitors, there's only one I really worry about. And it's one that happens to have $35 billion in revenues and $50 billion in the bank. And it happens to be in the software business. Microsoft is the competitor, and it's the one that keeps me up at night.

Fortunately, Microsoft's problems and challenges are so great that as a competitor, it is less of a threat to Adobe.

A few observations from the article:

Chizen doesn't even qualify Freehand as giving Illustrator competition any longer.

The article focuses on Adobe's enterprise products—existing and hinted at. Photoshop and the other creative applications for which Adobe is best known are mentioned anecdotally.

In recent years Adobe has refocused its brand from the warm and fuzzy creative pro's best friend, to a repositioned network publishing and document systems giant. This is evidenced by the former Adobe tagline "The Network Publishing Leader" and the more oblique current "Tools For The New Work." Still, Chizen believes Adobe is true to its origins.

Chizen candidly touches on, however briefly, the struggles he faces between building the company and "making sure that the employees feel as if their job is relatively secure".

In case anyone forgot, Chizen runs down the the Adobe vs. Microsoft score card. At this point in the game the Redmond team is behind by 5.

A subtle driving home of the point that Adobe is cooler than Microsoft:  "Meanwhile, we get to partner with all Microsoft's enemies because we're a great alternative and we don't really compete head-on with any of its big competitors. That's our strategy against Microsoft."

For more on this story read Scobelizer:  Microsoft Geek Blogger