|
Naresh Gupta, the managing director of Adobe
Systems India is a scientist at heart. He tells Shipra Arora how
his company’s goals are not different from his personal dreams
 |
| Naresh Chand Gupta, Managing Director,
Adobe Systems India |
Naresh Chand Gupta, managing director of Adobe
Systems India, is a ‘Patent Man’. Gupta has six patents
in his name. A man of simple taste, whether for clothing or office
décor, he embodies the scientist. At the helm of affairs
at Adobe India, that requires him to pack in managerial functions
as well and show other facets, he still wishes to remain a scientist
at the core.
It was Gupta who came up with the idea and a
concrete plan of setting up Adobe’s operations in India. He
conceived, proposed, planned and executed Adobes’ India development
centre, thus being the man who brought Adobe to India.
Today his belief has proved to be true with India
contributing almost 20 percent of Adobe’s engineering efforts.
Adobe India owns several products like PageMaker, FrameMaker, Postscript,
Photo-shop album Starter Edition, Acrobat Reader on Unix and Acrobat
Reader on alternate platforms such as Palm OS, Pocket PC and Symbian.
This apart, almost all products that Adobe ships have components
done out of India. Under his leadership, the Adobe India campus
is a hub of innovations and has filed for more than 20 patents in
the last four years.
“I just had confidence in myself and the
people I saw. It’s not just the people at IIT but those from
other engineering colleges as well,” says Gupta. Besides, he
feels that was the time when the software boom was just starting
to happen with several companies like Infosys and Wipro starting
to make an impact. “1997 was the beginning of that mad rush
and India started to emerge as a big software hub. I feel that I
was lucky to be at the right place at the right time,” he adds.
When starting Adobe India, Gupta was responsible
for all facets, including legal, finance, HR, etc. He transformed
himself into a manager with equal ease and elan. “It’s
just that I have a good processing unit and have a heart to do it.
Both my mind and heart were there. I knew that even if I don’t
know things I can learn them,” he explains. However, Gupta
insists, “I truly am not a manager. I don’t know how to
manage.” It is another matter that there is enough evidence
to the contrary—Adobe’s Indian success and the position
it has secured are testimony enough.
Before relocating to India to start the Adobe
India R&D centre in 1997, Gupta had served Adobe Systems, Inc
as a computer scientist in 1996 and 1997. As part of Adobe’s
Corporate Research Group, he conducted research in image processing
and understanding, which lead to six individual worldwide patents.
Several key components are now part of Adobe Photoshop and other
worldclass products.
Gupta is still deeply involved in development
activities at the company. “At some level I feel that I am
much better at technology than as the head of this company. My biggest
contribution will actually be getting the right products out.”
This is well aligned with his vision for Adobe
India. The biggest contemporary challenge for Gupta is to create
the next killer application. “Can we create a new Photoshop
from scratch? Can we create a billion dollar product out of India?”
Gupta is leading the company well on its journey to that goal and
hopes to reach there at some point. “It’s a path of trials
and tribulations and it’s hard to say how far we have come.
We are creating the infrastructure and investing in people who will
create this product tomorrow,” says Gupta.
The personal goals that he has set for himself
are aligned with the goals that he has set for Adobe. He says that
as long as he is with Adobe, his goals and Adobe’s goals will
be common. “The day I think that my goals are different from
Adobe’s, I’ll walk away,” he says.
Adobe has given him the ability to translate
ideas and innovations into concrete products that are used by millions
of people. This was the reason that attracted Gupta to Adobe after
six to seven years of working with a US-based research organisation,
LNK Corporation. There he worked in various capacities—as research
scientist, senior research scientist and principal scientist. The
work was related to the US Department of Defense. Some of the key
projects that Gupta was involved in there included Star Wars, NASA
Mars Probe and Brilliant Pebbles.
Though the work was exciting, Gupta admits that
the problem was that hardly anything was getting translated into
a product as the gestation period was very long. “Even after
six-seven years I didn’t see anything move to a point where
I could see a product at the end of the day. I needed an environment
where I can see my ideas translated into a product fast. It’s
about being able to make a real impact,” says Gupta.
“But, do I know where I have to go? The
answer is that the search is still on. I am a
scientist and therefore not scared to experiment
and probably will continue the experiment. Sometimes it will be
interesting and sometimes it will not.” Whatever the result,
Gupta is all set to take the challenge head-on.
shipra@expresscomputeronline.com
|
