With Google Wave's recent attempt to move business people to a new hosted paradigm for collaboration, Adobe has its own ideas about moving workgroups and documents to the cloud. The San Jose-based company today took its Web-based productivity suite, Acrobat.com, out of beta and added a beta version of its new online spreadsheet, Tables, joining Adobe's online word processor, Buzzword.
These steps are all part of Adobe's vision for workers to collaborate virtually and in real time, rather than working on, for example, word processing or spreadsheet documents and then e-mailing them to collaborators. PCMag.com last week met with Adobe's Erik Larson, director of product marketing and management. Larson said that 5 million accounts have been created in the service, with 100,000 being added weekly. He estimated real-time collaboration to be a two-billion-dollar opportunity for Adobe.
Acrobat.com consists of the Buzzword word processor, Adobe ConnectNow for live Web-based meetings and screen sharing, online PDF conversion, and online file storing and sharing. Presentation and spreadsheet creation and editing are still at the beta stage and living at labs.acrobat.com; the rest of the service is being taken out of beta. Premium Basic service ($14.99 a month or $149 a year) includes Adobe ConnectNow for up to five participants and conversion of ten documents to PDF per month. Premium Plus service ($39 a month or $390 a year) includes 20 participants and unlimited PDF creation. The free service will continue to offer Buzzword, ConnectNow Web meeting capacity for up to three participants, and five PDF conversions.
These steps are all part of Adobe's vision for workers to collaborate virtually and in real time, rather than working on, for example, word processing or spreadsheet documents and then e-mailing them to collaborators. PCMag.com last week met with Adobe's Erik Larson, director of product marketing and management. Larson said that 5 million accounts have been created in the service, with 100,000 being added weekly. He estimated real-time collaboration to be a two-billion-dollar opportunity for Adobe.
Acrobat.com consists of the Buzzword word processor, Adobe ConnectNow for live Web-based meetings and screen sharing, online PDF conversion, and online file storing and sharing. Presentation and spreadsheet creation and editing are still at the beta stage and living at labs.acrobat.com; the rest of the service is being taken out of beta. Premium Basic service ($14.99 a month or $149 a year) includes Adobe ConnectNow for up to five participants and conversion of ten documents to PDF per month. Premium Plus service ($39 a month or $390 a year) includes 20 participants and unlimited PDF creation. The free service will continue to offer Buzzword, ConnectNow Web meeting capacity for up to three participants, and five PDF conversions.
