Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Thomas Ernst – Deutsche Bank.
Thomas Ernst - Deutsche Bank
Good afternoon, thank you. A question and a follow-up on the guidance. It looks like the guidance reduction relative to I think what I and The Street were looking for, relative to the normal seasonality, took a little bit bigger hit in Q3; and Q4 seems to be quite strong.
The first part of the question, with the Acrobat 8 product cycle coming, are you assuming any help from the Acrobat 8 cycle in Q3 in terms of inventory fill?
If so, you can help us with what looks like a very strong performance in Q4 please. Particularly if we are experiencing a little bit of a hold-up effect here with Creative Suite, do we have some risk that it intensifies as we head into Q4 or we get closer to the launch?
Bruce Chizen
Regarding the overall targets going forward, we did factor in a somewhat slowing down of the Creative business, factoring out seasonality in Q4, based on the issues surrounding customers either switching to Mactel or looking at switching to Mactel, as well as just a tailing off or a trailing off of the upgrade business. That is already factored into our guidance.
We're expecting that Q3, because of seasonality, the Creative business will be down from Q2, but we are expecting it to pick up again in Q4 because of the seasonal impact.
Regarding Acrobat 8, we still are on track for Acrobat 8 in Q4. If Q3 is similar to previous quarters before we had a release, it should continue to be another good quarter for Acrobat, other than the fact that we have Q3 seasonality. Because of the Q3 seasonality, we do anticipate Acrobat 7 in Q3 being down a bit.
Thomas Ernst - Deutsche Bank
Perfect. One point of clarification. Is there any inventory shipments or any revenue recognition you expect in Q3 from Acrobat 8?
Bruce Chizen
Absolutely not.
Thomas Ernst - Deutsche Bank
All right. Thanks again.
Operator
Our next question comes from John McPeake – Prudential Equity Group.
John McPeake - Prudential Equity Group
Historically you have been a little more exposed than other software companies to the economic cycles, because of the graphic artists selling to the print and the other advertising segments. I'm just trying to get a sense as to (a) whether that is playing at all into the lower guidance, and then (b) just generally if you're seeing any kind of a slowdown in your customer base at all, Bruce?
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