“Adobe’s free online collaboration suite aims at making inroads against Google Apps and Microsoft Office Live Workspace.”
In a move to tap the growing segment of online office suites, Adobe joined the fight in the online office space Monday with the launch of an online document editing and sharing beta site, Acrobat.com, which will challenge the likes of Google Docs, Microsoft Office Live, and Zoho Office.
Acrobat version 9’s major revision is the inclusion of Flash support, while its Acrobat.com suite of word processing, file-sharing and Web conferencing software offers ways for PDF users to collaborate more closely when creating and working with documents online.
The twofold releases exponentially expand the company’s support of Web 2.0 technologies. The software was released in conjunction with the launch of Adobe Acrobat 9.
By combining Flash support for the first time since Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia, “we have expanded and redefined the meaning of an electronic document and the experience you can deliver by creating PDFs,” Marion Melani, group product marketing manager for Acrobat, said in a statement.
Acrobat.com is basically built on existing Adobe properties such as Buzzword, an online word processing app acquired by the company late last year with the purchase of Virtual Ubiquity. The suite also features ConnectNow, web conferencing service that gives users a unique URL and the ability to take control of remote PCs. PDF creation, document sharing, and online file storage polishes up the offering.
The collaborative tools offered in Acrobat.com — the beta of online tools — add further value to the document creation process, Mark Grilli, group product marketing manager of Acrobat.com, said in a statement. Creating mashup applications around this process is one example, he added, pointing to chat sessions created around a Portable Document Format (PDF) by participants in a private beta.
“Presently the Acrobat.com service is available only in trial, or beta, form; but anyone can sign up.”
The trial version allows users to convert up to five documents per month to the PDF format free of charge. These documents can be embedded on a website or a blog.
Adobe said it would make the programming interfaces for the site available so others can plug it into their own services.
Adding Adobe’s document-handling prowess to its acquisition of Buzzword from Virtual Ubiquity, Buzzword is one of the more-capable online word processors available. Online storage comes with a 5 Gbyte cap, and sharing will be via a static URL for the document. The service also lets you embed documents for display on your own sites.
The proliferation of so many apps, lots of which users have to download onto their desktops, is crowding corporate desktops. Adobe ConnectNow, a personal Web conferencing service that includes desktop sharing, video and voice conferencing and integrated chat; where users need not download any software, is a breath of fresh air, but it still has to compete with the passel of other competing apps out there from Cisco, IBM and others.
Acrobat.com also offers My Files, a file-sharing organizer and storage space. Users can browse documents by author, file type, alphabetical order, date created, last updated or other filters.
“Distributing files to people, collaborating on their content and design and controlling who sees them are much easier with these tools,” Grilli commented.
IDC analyst Melissa Webster noted Adobe has clearly made big strides shaping these offerings since it acquired Virtual Ubiquity, which made the Buzzword word processor. Moreover, she said Acrobat ConnectNow was in beta for awhile as Brio, and Adobe has had “Create PDF Online” for a few years.
“What is new here is these products are coming together in a cohesive set of online services, with common branding and user experience,” Webster said in a statement. “What is special about Adobe’s offering is the integration with Connect and PDF creation — it is not just about sharing documents, but also the collaborative process of actually creating them.”
The Acrobat 9 product lineup includes Acrobat 9 Standard, Acrobat 9 Pro, and the new Acrobat 9 Pro Extended software, which will be integrated into Adobe Creative Suite 3.3 Design Premium and Standard editions, Creative Suite 3.3 Web Premium and Creative Suite 3.3 Master Collection editions, the company also announced. Acrobat 9 Pro enables designers to collaborate on documents more efficiently.
The service is available now to the public as a free, open beta. It is compatible with Internet Explorer 6 and later, Firefox 2 and later, and Safari 2 and later, and requires Adobe Flash 9.