Adobe Acrobat takes big online leap, with word processor, file storage and sharing,

News Type: Event — Seeded on Tue Jun 3, 2008 7:22 AM EDT

Article Source: webware.com

technology, flash, adobe, online-community, acrobat, file-storage-and-sharing

Adobe unveiled an online community Monday with a word processor; file storage and sharing; and deep tie-ins to a newly Flash-enabled Acrobat 9.

The online push for Acrobat is a bold move for a brand perhaps best associated with the free and nearly ubiquitous Acrobat Reader, which opens print-ready Portable Document Format, or PDF, files. Now, PDFs will play movies.

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{"commentId":1880506,"authorDomain":"marilynl"}

Marilyn L

Big step for Adobe, it'll be interesting to see if this works. They've tried a few sharing technologies, but none has taken off. Adding word processing, etc. may work for them.

{"commentId":1880506,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"marilynl"}

3 votes

#1 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 7:24 AM EDT

{"commentId":1880908,"authorDomain":"keggerlord-1"}

Jay Keggerlord

This is part of an obvious direction they've been moving for some time. When they acquired Macromedia (who had acquired Allaire), I knew something was up. Pretty much, they've obtained a core-competency within the online data and document sharing industry. Expect to see this as a mere precursor of things to come from this company. I am almost surprised they haven't put in a bid for Yahoo, given the direction the company is heading; it would be a natural fit with everything else they're doing.

For those who don't already know:

Allaire: ColdFusion (web-database connectivity)
Macromedia: Flash (web-animation and action scripting) and Dreamweaver (multi-format web page editing)

{"commentId":1880908,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"keggerlord-1"}

3 votes

#1.1 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 9:12 AM EDT

{"commentId":1880571,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}

Tedd Riggs

I used to hate Acrobat on the PC as it was so painfully slow, but since its native language on the Mac, I find I use it far more often. They sure are pushing this one alot. I'll be curious if it goes or not.

{"commentId":1880571,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}

3 votes

#2 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 7:47 AM EDT

{"commentId":1880707,"authorDomain":"marilynl"}

Marilyn L

Me, too. One problem Adobe has had is that it makes several flavors of Acrobat, so that only designers have the high end product. This hampered use of its editing suite of tools by my clients until the latest version. I haven't seen the product yet, so don't know if they've learned from past experience or not.

{"commentId":1880707,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"marilynl"}

2 votes

#2.1 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 8:27 AM EDT

{"commentId":1880894,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}

Tedd Riggs

They say they unveiled it, but I am not sure how to. I have been on the download list for weeks, and its still not available yet...

{"commentId":1880894,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}

1 vote

#2.2 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 9:09 AM EDT

{"commentId":1880767,"authorDomain":"kokayi"}

Kokayi

I guess we're going to have to wait and see a comparison between Google Docs and Acrobat.com. I signed up for an acrobat.com account. One feature I see that may be very useful is Word 2007 document conversion.

{"commentId":1880767,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"kokayi"}

2 votes

#3 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 8:42 AM EDT

{"commentId":1881163,"authorDomain":"evilgenius"}

evilgenius

80 percent of my job is pdf form creation and Acro JavaScripting, but I'm still using Acrobat Pro 6 and I have been waiting for 9 to come out. I'm interested in see how well all this works and what problems people have.

{"commentId":1881163,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"evilgenius"}

1 vote

#4 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 9:51 AM EDT

{"commentId":1881741,"authorDomain":"pixel9"}

pixel9

Maybe this will finally allow our institution to embrace a web-based, collaborative work environment. Before this, the excuses were plenty:

* Microsoft is too expensive
* Google Docs is to 'techy'
* Can we trust a small company like Zoho?

With the price of gasoline at an all-time high, Adobe would be well served to push the 'work from anywhere' angle.

{"commentId":1881741,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"pixel9"}

2 votes

#5 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 11:14 AM EDT

{"commentId":1881991,"authorDomain":"TeddRi"}

Tedd Riggs

I would be nervous about Zoho until they get some more time under their belt, for a basically yr old company, I think they are doing pretty well, but they have some tough people to compete against.

I am curious to see what comes out of this thing with Adobe when it finally becomes more real and out there.

{"commentId":1881991,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"TeddRi"}

2 votes

#5.1 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 11:44 AM EDT

{"commentId":1883266,"authorDomain":"fdbryant3"}

FDBryant3

My biggest concern on web based collaboration as a business would be security. I'm not sure I'd want to trust to a 3rd party.

{"commentId":1883266,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"fdbryant3"}

3 votes

#5.2 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 2:18 PM EDT

{"commentId":1883536,"authorDomain":"kylen"}

KyleN

I like Adobe in general and recently used their form building tool bundled with pro 8 to build forms for a large site. I don't like their background licensing bs service they run, much like I don't like the Apple related service junk maybe that is a mac thing.

I still groan when I have to open a PDF file from the Web (my PCs make loud grinding noises), so I'm curious to see how the new tools might make PDFs faster to open as well as more dynamic to explore.

I second that for sure!

Having a web form that prints well without more hoops to jump through and with embedded graphics is nice. It's unfortunate there isn't a CSS means to pull that off well without picking up the bloat or special program needs of pdf. CSS print stylesheets are not good enough but are a start.

{"commentId":1883536,"threadId":"276941","contentId":"1534236","authorDomain":"kylen"}

1 vote

#6 - Tue Jun 3, 2008 2:47 PM EDT

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MARILYN L

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Adobe Acrobat takes big online leap, with word processor, file storage and sharing,

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