Adobe Systems in November will release Acrobat 8, an updated version of its PDF software that adds Web conferencing services gained from its acquisition of Macromedia.
The company on Monday detailed its refreshed Acrobat line and pricing. In tandem with the product upgrade, Adobe will launch a hosted service called Acrobat Connect, which will allow individuals to click on a button in a PDF file to start a Web conference.
Executives said that Adobe will continue to add collaboration-oriented features to its Acrobat products.
"The motion forward is around personal and project spaces where people can communicate around certain issues and topics," said Ricky Liversidge, a product marketing manager at Adobe. "It's like having my personal meeting room--a URL where you go forward and store documents."
Connect is a rebranded edition of a Web conferencing product formerly called Macromedia Breeze.
From a PDF file, a person can use Connect to let someone else view a document or a person's entire desktop through a Web browser. Connect, which runs with the Adobe Flash Player, also lets a person start a chat with instant messaging or send an invitation via e-mail.
For individuals, Adobe will host the service, which will cost $39 per month or $395 per year. The service is slated to launch in mid-November.
For corporate customers, Adobe created an on-premise edition of Adobe Connect, a server installed and maintained by customers.
Other features in Acrobat 8 include the ability to combine multiple distinct documents with a PDF file. For example, a person could include a Word document within a larger file that maintains the original digital signature.
What does conferencing have to do with electronic documents like PDF. Just more bloat in a program that is already shower than snot in a snow storm. I will stick with Macromedia FlashPaper it creates PDF quickly and effectively. That is why I figure Adobe will either kill it off to swell it up with bloatware like a pregnant yak!
Google creates an animated doodle that features a boy, a girl, Google's search engine, and a jump rope. But might there be darker, more analytical, more troubling interpretations to this tale?
The Silicon Valley online payments startup grew by 1,000 percent last year and is hopeful it can repeat that level of growth this year. To do that, it's had to move away from its early friends-and-family roots and embrace small businesses.
Chamtech's spray-on antenna uses a nano material to provide a low-power boost to antenna range. The wireless-in-a-can product may some day bring an end to unsightly cell towers.
EnerG2 opens a plant to make an engineered carbon that will improve performance of energy storage devices and make storage for start-stop hybrid cars less expensive.
Robert