Acrobat 8 Ships

By DE Editors

Adobe Systems, Inc. (San Jose, CA) today, November 2, announced theimmediate availability of Adobe Acrobat 8 family. In a relatedstatement, Adobe also announced the immediate availability of a freetrial of the Adobe Acrobat Connect, a hosted web conferencingand collaboration service offering “always-on” personal meeting rooms.

The Acrobat family consists of Acrobat 8 Professional, Acrobat 8Standard, Acrobat 8 Elements, Acrobat 3D Version 8, Acrobat Connect,and Acrobat Connect Professional. According to Adobe, Acrobat 8 hasbeen enhanced with new tools for communicating and collaborating acrossoperating systems, applications, and firewalls.

Among the enhancements to the product line is the ability to combinemultiple documents into a single, secure PDF package. The resultantsearchable PDF documents can include CAD drawings, large-format files,Gantt charts, spreadsheets, and various rich media formats. Access toand use of these documents remain under user control, and you canassign digital rights as well as lock down document integrity.

Users of Adobe Reader 8 can participate in shared reviews as well ascomment on and digitally sign materials. By hitting the Start Meetingbutton, Acrobat 8 users can collaborate in real-time through the AdobeAcrobat Connect hosted service.

Acrobat Connect leverages your web browser and Adobe Flash Player toaccess an interactive online conferencing system through which projectteams can communicate and collaborate in personal meeting rooms.Formerly known as Macromedia Breeze Meeting, Acrobat Connect scalesfrom two to 2,500 participants. Using its Collaboration BuilderSoftware Development Kit, you can customize and extend itsfunctionality to your organizational best practices. Among thefunctionality Acrobat Connect offers are application and desktopsharing, participant management, audio controls, video conferencing,meeting recordings, PowerPoint presentations, polling, andwhiteboarding.

Acrobat 8 Professional runs under Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, andis available for $449 (estimated street price). Users of qualifyingearlier versions of Acrobat can upgrade to Acrobat 8 Professional for$159. Acrobat 8 Standard for Windows is $299 or $99 for an upgrade.Version 8 of the free Adobe Reader expected to be available in earlyDecember.

Acrobat Connect is available right now and through the end of 2006 as afree trial. You can access it via the “Start Meeting” button in Acrobat8, or by clicking here. The commercial release of Acrobat Connect isexpected in January 2007. Adobe has set subscription prices at $39 permonth or $395 per year per personal meeting room. Click here forfurther details on the features and functions available in AcrobatConnect.

For complete information on the Acrobat family click here.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.