Adobe's patches are expected on a weekly schedule beginning next year, and will cover most products.Adobe will begin releasing security patches on a predictable monthly basis next year, according to a spokesperson at the company.
Adobe's manager of secure software engineering, Adrian Ludwig, spoke of the plans at a security roundtable discussion. Adobe has not released an official statement.
The monthly security updates will begin sometime next year and are expected to cover most, if not all, of Adobe's products.
Currently Adobe releases patches on an ad-hoc basis.
Many of the details are not yet finalized. Adobe expects that users will be notified via the same e-mail and automatic update mechanisms available today.
Macromedia, which was recently purchased by Adobe, had been planning to move to a monthly patch schedule this month. Those plans were superceded by the acquisition and Adobe's plan to issue company and product-wide alerts.
"There's no real surprise here," said Jupiter vice president and research director Michael Gartenberg. "Obviously as security becomes more of an issue with both the enterprise and with consumers, we'll see more vendors get on this track."
Currently both Microsoft and Oracle release security patches on a set schedule. Microsoft releases patches weekly, while Oracle releases quarterly.
