San Jose, California — In an attempt to keep pace with growing competition in the online arena, popular designing software maker Adobe Systems Inc., today revealed that it has acquired EchoSign, the maker of a popular web-based electronic signature solution and signature automation service, for an undisclosed amount.
EchoSign is a web-based provider of electronic signatures. Adobe officials mentioned that EchoSign’s pioneering electronic signature solution will be a key component of the company’s document exchange services platform to ensure secure delivery of documents for universal access, review and approval, in a press release on the acquisition.
If this kind of technology is mobilized, it could finally kill the fax machine and paper contracts. Adobe did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
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“Adobe’s document solutions help organizations turn inefficient, paper-based workflows into streamlined electronic ones,” said Kevin M. Lynch, vice president and general manager of Acrobat Solutions and Digital Enterprise Solutions at Adobe, in a statement. “By integrating electronic signature capabilities to Adobe’s document exchange services platform, we will be addressing the need to provide better customer experiences by significantly reducing the time, cost and complexity associated with having a document signed.”
However, that is the goal, at least. Paperless offices were fore-casted long ago, but we are killing more trees than ever with legal documents. EchoSign’s goal is to make electronic signatures the standard way for people to sign documents and automate contracting, said Jason Lemkin, CEO of EchoSign. The goal is to reduce the time and cost of having documents signed, accelerate sales cyles, improve tracking, and centralized the management of signed agreements.
The EchoSign technology, which is currently adopted by more than 3 million users worldwide, will be consolidated with other Adobe document services including SendNow for managed file transfer, FormsCentral for form creation and CreatePDF for online PDF creation. By cutting the time and costs of having documents signed with traditional methods, such as fax and overnight envelopes, the EchoSign solution can enable customers to significantly accelerate sales cycles, improve tracking and centralize the management of signed agreements through a simple to use cloud service.
Moreover, the company plans to discontinue as a result of the acquisition a cloud-based electronic signature service, called eSignatures or eSign, that it released in May last year. The service is currently in beta and will be targeted for end-of-life, a company spokeswoman said on Monday. With the acquisition of EchoSign, existing users of Adobe eSign beta service will greatly “benefit from a much richer and complete product offering for their electronic signature needs”, she added.
“Bringing together EchoSign’s ease of use for contracting on the Web with Adobe’s brand, reach and trust in the document space, I fully expect that electronic signatures will soon become the common way for people to sign documents,” said Lemkin. “With nothing to download, learn or install, there is simply no faster or more secure way for organizations to sign, track or file contracts — and close more business quickly.”
The factor that differentiate EchoSign, which offers a subscription-based service to individuals, small to medium-size businesses, and enterprise customers, aiding the signature process and automatically storing and managing all signed documents, Adobe said.
The EchoSign service comprises a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) for integration with company-specific solutions to improve the process of sending, tracking and signing digital documents, it added. The technology is already integrated with services from vendors like Salesforce.com and NetSuite, a vendor of cloud computing business management software suites.
“Together, our aim is to make electronic signatures the standard way for people to sign documents and automate contracting,” Lemkin, said in a blog post on Sunday on the company’s website.
EchoSign, based in Palo Alto, Calif. with a sales presence in the U.K. and Germany. The founders of EchoSign and all full-time employees will join Adobe, bringing with them a wealth of knowledge and experience in electronic signature solutions.