Shock CEO departure – what now for Adobe’s Omniture v2.0?

Adobe's takeover of web analytics champion Omniture has entered a new phase as Josh James, founder and CEO of Omniture, unexpectedly announces his departure from the joint firm.

James’ departure comes just nine months after Adobe acquired the firm he founded for $1.8 billion. The reason for James decision was not disclosed, but it comes only weeks after he told MyCustomer.com of his vision for the firm going forward.

The news comes after Adobe announced that all products that were previously branded as Omniture would now be branded Adobe. Also, the overall Omniture brand will transition to being an ingredient brand (for example, Adobe SiteCatalyst, powered by Omniture).

James told employees in an email: "Yes, this is spam. I’m trying to efficiently reach out to make sure you update your address book... As I’m sure you’ve heard, I’m moving on from Omniture and Adobe and today is my last day. It was a fantastic ride, and it’s time to move onto the next gig. In the meantime, I’ll be bass fishing."

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe's president and CEO, paid tribute to James. "With Omniture, Josh built the industry's first integrated online marketing suite as an intelligent platform to optimize online business initiatives," he said. "Further, he provided the leadership to ensure that we exceeded our timelines and milestones for the integration of Omniture into Adobe.

"In fact, Omniture's business has never been stronger and now accounts for about 10% of Adobe's revenue. This is due, in large part, to Josh's leadership and we're grateful for his contributions."

Brad Rencher, who formerly was vice president of business operations for Omniture BU (OBU), will succeed James and has been promoted to vice president and general manager. Rencher, said that James had "wanted to deliver to Adobe and shareholders a business that was operating extremely well … the business is strong. He created a deep management team. Both Josh and the senior [managers] of Adobe were confident that the team … can continue to run and grow the business."

He added that James had made an impact on Adobe in the nine months that he worked there. "Omniture was made in Josh’s image," said Rencher. "Adobe has embraced the aggressiveness, the confidence, the competitive spirit that made Omniture what it is."

Adobe sees the web analytics market as a major opportunity for growth. According to Forrester Research, the Web analytics market will be worth $1 billion mark by 2014. To date providers of free tools take up 78%, but Forrester predicts that spending on the analytics technology will see a compound annual growth rate of 17.2% over the next several years, rising from $363 million in 2008 to $953 million in 2014.

Earlier this month, Adobe expanded its online marketing investment by agreeing to buy Day Software, a Swiss maker of web content management products, for about $240 million. "With the addition of Day to our enterprise portfolio, we will be able to enhance the value of our offering and deliver on our vision of the Web as the hub of customer interaction," said Rob Tarkoff, Adobe's senior vice president and general manager of digital enterprise solutions.