Workfront CEO Alex Shootman, who after the deal closes will report to Chakravarthy, reinforced the marketing focus when he spoke to Bloomberg about the deal: Adobe's announcement of the deal emphasized the combination of Workfront with its Experience Cloud to 'bring efficiency, collaboration, and productivity gains to marketing teams currently challenged with siloed work management solutions,' adding that a third of Workfront's 3,000 customers are already Adobe customers, including Deloitte, Under Armour, Nordstrom, Prudential Financial, T-Mobile, and The Home Depot.

When the acquisition closes, Workfront will become part of Adobe's digital experience business unit under Anil Chakravarthy, who was CEO at integration vendor Informatica before joining Adobe in January. But with marketing teams taking the lead as early adopters of such platforms, is Adobe simply acquiring an add-on to its existing tools for marketers? Or does it have its sights set on a far bigger opportunity? The price reflects the growth that's currently being seen in the sector, which also includes recent IPO debutant Asana, developer favorite Atlassian, and many smaller, venture-funded players.

Multimedia and digital marketing software giant Adobe announced yesterday it is acquiring work management pioneer Workfront for $1.5 billion.

Adobe workfront pricing