Adobe offers online presentation technology

Adobe now offers an online presentation service.

(Credit: Adobe Systems)

Expanding its push from software toward online services, Adobe Systems on Wednesday introduced a technology for collaboratively producing and sharing online presentations.

Acrobat.com Presentations, hosted at Adobe Labs in its current, somewhat experimental state, joins Adobe's Buzzword online word processor with its ConnectNow service for screen sharing and other online meeting activities. Adobe also offers a basic online version of its Photoshop image-editing technology called Photoshop.com.

"The application includes built-in tools and layouts for adding visually appealing elements, such as pre-defined color sets, intelligent image placement and graphic tools for creating diagrams and adding effects," Adobe said in a statement.

Acrobat.com Presentations also lets multiple people work on the same presentation at the same time. "With simultaneous editing capabilities, no one is locked out of the presentation while others are making changes," Adobe said. "The application also makes it easy to see who has access to the presentation, who is viewing, who is editing and which slide each person is editing."

Acrobat.com Presentations is based on Adobe's Flash technology, an add-on that's widely installed in Web browsers. In contrast, a rival service, Google Docs, uses the JavaScript programming language built into Web browsers. Microsoft's upcoming online Office service will use JavaScript but get extra abilities if a browser has Silverlight, Microsoft's rival to Flash, installed.

[ErikLarson]

Hi Stephen, thanks for the posting. People can try out Acrobat.com Presentations at http://labs.acrobat.com.

Cheers,
-Erik Larson
Adobe Systems

[nickchhan]

Very nice to see Adobe, Microsoft, and Google competing in the office productivity space. Adobe is going to have a tough battle ahead with those 2, innovation and speed is key.

[cube3]

Beware, the last time Adobe tried to do "service" online it claimed OWNERSHIP of all work you did in its online service.....
READ the TOS first. A note to all designers.

cube3

[Mr. Dee]

Sorry, I am just happy with PowerPoint. I tried using BuzzWords, but it was so slow and took a long time to load. I can quickly do what I want in locally installed Office apps, email it, get the feedback, apply it and done.

[Mac2Win]

Powerpoint... HAHAhahahahahahahahahahahahaha