Like a complex Photoshop file, Adobe is a multi-layered company. This fact was highlighted ever so vividly at the recent Adobe Digital Marketing summit held in the Omniture-land in Utah. Adobe is known for its many recent acquisitions (Omniture, Day Software, Context Optional/Efficient Frontier, Nitobi, Auditude, Demdex, etc.), as well as organic growth.

Think of these acquisitions as Photoshop layers and filters that go into the composition of a very complex picture of the product known as the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite, which incorporates approximately 17 SaaS-based distinct products under its roof. Sounds complex, right? It could prove be a goldmine for Adobe and its partner channel, but a very dark tunnel for its customers.

Adding to the complexity is Adobe’s data-driven digital marketing approach. It’s not surprising that Adobe has 27 data centers around the world and processes six trillion transactions (e.g., a mouse click) a year. More Big Data doesn't mean better data, or better marketing decisions. Software is as important as the processes and people. Despite much automation that machines can do, any Omniture customers will confirm that you still need analytics geeks in addition to marketers, IT, and other members of your organization.

Complexities aside, there was a lot of insightful talk at the Summit – particularly, the ideas about Digital Self (your profile and how it can be utilized by marketers), predictive insights, adaptive content, social analytics, and getting technology out of the way of marketers. A myriad of announcements were also made. Let me highlight a few:

• Launch of "Adobe Social," based on the Context Optional/Efficient Frontier acquisition, with the idea of social publishing, monitoring, engagement, ad buying, and analytics
• Predictive Marketing: Leverage historical data to predict future results and uncover behavior patterns for better targeting
• Launch of CQ 5.5: Updated version of the Web Experience Management (WEM) system with more meaningful integrations into Scene7, Search&Promote, and SiteCatalyst
• New eCommerce features via a partnership with hybris
• Adobe Discover addition of cross-visit analytics across multiple online properties.

One of the areas that Adobe is still not caught up on yet is Digital Asset Management in the context of digital marketing. “Expect us to step up,” said Kevin Lynch, the company’s CTO, as Adobe plans to further its CQ DAM and Scene7 products.

Adobe spans across multiple categories in our forthcoming Digital Marketing evaluation research, with very few rivals that can boast a comparable set of capabilities. I can think of Salesforce, Google, IBM, and maybe Oracle in terms of breadth. While Adobe doesn't exactly hold a monopoly in this space, their mantra is, “to be the standard for the way digital marketing and advertising is created, managed, executed, measured and optimized.”

The issue is whether you're really best served by doing digital marketing the Adobe Way. Adobe's Digital Marketing Suite is a complex panorama of technologies, with some layers still unrealized. A dizzying array of tools is typically not the ideal first step for solving real business problems.