Adobe fiscal Q4 revenue grew 14% year on year to $3.42 billion for the quarter ended Nov. 27, it said, citing growth in creativity, digital documents and customer experience management. The company created a Publishing and Advertising operating segment to reflect a strategic shift to cloud-based advertising. Ad cloud revenue was in the Digital Experience segment, which recorded $877 million in Q4 revenue. Digital Experience revenue was $819 million, a 10% gain. Subscriptions were $3.1 billion vs. $2.6 billion; product was $127 million vs. $167 million; and services and other totaled $182 million, down from $246 million.

Best Buy, as part of a commitment to furthering economic and social justice in communities, has opened 30 Teen Tech Centers, with a goal of 100 by the end of 2025, said CEO Corie Barry on a Tuesday call (see also a report in the Nov. 25 issue). The centers help disadvantaged teens learn technology skills required for the modern economy, Barry said; the company hopes to serve more than 30,000 youths annually in five years. The company pledged to have one out of three non-hourly open corporate positions filled by someone who is Black, indigenous or a person of color, and one out of three non-hourly field roles filled by women, she said, with the hope of creating over the next few years, “parity and retention rates among all of these groups.” The company transferred $40 million in Q3 to the Best Buy Foundation to support the initiatives.

Comscore plans to deploy a measured national advertising system for buyers and sellers of addressable ads in 2021, said CEO Bill Livek on a Monday investor call. The MVPD connected TV-centric approach, which enables measurement for more than 50 million households, will allow advertisers to use a common impression-level metric for addressable inventory that reconciles with non-addressable minutes and improves accountability across the ecosystem, said the executive. The measurement provides impressions for national programmer minutes across the largest MVPDs and connected TVs. Livek cited “dramatic changes” to media consumption behaviors in 2020 in increased streaming, gaming, e-commerce spending and mobile shopping: “As media content, particularly video, becomes increasingly cross-platform in nature, media buying and selling is shifting away from traditional age and gender demographics in gross rating points to audiences and impression-based measurement,” he said. The changes require measurement consistency across linear, digital and over-the-top video, he said, saying Comscore has been using impressions to measure audiences for many years. "Impressions, just not an average rating, will be used to evaluate success by planners and buyers, regardless of where the content and new advertising are viewed by consumers." Q3 revenue was $88 million vs. $94.3 million in the year-ago quarter on "challenging" market conditions, said the company.

AT&T's board picked ex-FCC Chairman William Kennard as chairman, following the January retirement of Randall Stephenson, currently AT&T’s executive chairman. Kennard, the second FCC chairman under President Bill Clinton, from 1997 to 2001, subsequently worked for the Carlyle Group and was ambassador to the European Union. AT&T previously said the board would elect an independent chairman after Stephenson’s retirement, said a Friday news release. “Bill’s deep knowledge of communications, media and technology, proven leadership and broad experience across capital markets and government uniquely positions him to serve as AT&T’s new chairman,” Stephenson said. John Stankey replaced Stephenson as CEO July 1 (see 2004240027).

Enable portable operations in the 6 GHz band for immersive 5G services, Broadcom, Intel and Microsoft asked FCC Office of Engineering and Technology staff. “Enable communication between client devices when they are within range of an authorized 6 GHz Low Power Indoor Access Point,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 18-295. “The record clearly demonstrates that such operations would not increase the risk of harmful interference because clients would operate at the same power level as a client device communicating with the nearby access point … and only within that access point’s service area.” Commissioners may vote on changes in December (see 2010190040).

AT&T said it's committed to being carbon neutral by 2035. Steps include virtualizing many parts of its network, transitioning to a low-emissions vehicle fleet, expanding “sustainable” feature content production and investing in carbon offsets, the company said Thursday. AT&T estimates recovering from climate-related severe weather events cost it $1 billion since 2016.

Sumo Logic priced its initial public offering at $22 a share and closed 22.2% higher at $26.88 on its first trading day Thursday. The IPO pricing was a dollar above the high end of Sumo’s estimated $17-$21 range in a Sept. 8 registration statement. Sumo’s "continuous intelligence" software platform “scans an average of 873 petabytes of data per day and an average of 18.6 billion events per second,” said the statement. Its data analytics “provide actionable intelligence around what happened, why it happened, and how to resolve business, technology, or cybersecurity issues,” it said. Its 2,100 customers include Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, Major League Baseball and Netflix, it said.

Sony completed the procedures for making Sony Financial Holdings a wholly owned subsidiary, said the company Wednesday. “Alongside electronics and entertainment, financial services is a core business that is integral to the long-term growth strategies of the Sony Group,” it said. It will “further strengthen this business and explore further opportunities for synergies” with other Sony operations, it said.

Copilot, founded by digital design and analytics company Zemingo, announced Wednesday the CX Trend system, an automated customer experience platform to help CE companies develop relationships with customers through connected products. The software-as-a-service program collects data from devices and allows device makers to send contextual communications to users automatically, co-CEOs Zvi Frank and Tsiki Naftaly told us in a Tuesday pre-brief. "The days of the closest consumers ever got to the manufacturer was the warranty postcard that fell out of box are over,” said Frank, who said the SaaS platform gives manufacturers insights into how consumers use products and enables communication between them. IoT products contain “valuable usage information” and can communicate by mobile, app, email and voice, enabling a “personalized experience for customers,” Naftaly said. Smart home products are a target for Copilot, which could help with onboarding to reduce the number of product returns, said Naftaly. Out of the box, Copilot identifies issues that might exist between a smartphone using a particular version of Android and Bluetooth and suggests a workaround for the customer, he said. Cost for manufacturers is “a few cents per month” based on the number of devices using the platform, said Naftaly. On consumers’ privacy concerns, Naftaly said it’s important to “be forthcoming with customers,” telling them how and how often their data will be used. That includes telling them about available customer support and accessory suggestions and ensuring customers that data won’t be sold to third parties.

Facebook moved the release of its Q2 financials to Thursday after market close, from Wednesday, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify before the House Antitrust Subcommittee, said the company Monday. Facebook also scheduled an earnings call for 6 p.m. EDT Thursday. The CEOs of Amazon, Apple and Google also will testify at Wednesday’s noon hearing on the market “dominance” of online platforms. The hearing itself was rescheduled from Monday (see 2007270021).