Adobe will make the Acrobat.com domain a hub for document sharing and collaboration among Reader or Acrobat usersIt turns out that last week -- when we guessed there was something more to Share showing up at Adobe Labs than just a standalone experiment--we might have been right. Maintaining long-standing company policies, Adobe will not address what it calls "speculation" about upcoming Acrobat 9 features -- or even officially acknowledge its existence.
But sources tell PDFzone that Adobe plans to launch a new Acrobat.com web site that will enable document sharing. The site will be able to handle large, graphics-heavy documents -- which printable PDFs can sometimes be -- and will likely incorporate some of the same features Adobe is currently testing on Adobe Labs with Share.
Such document sharing is feasible now for Acrobat users who can set up their own servers on networks or online. Small business owners who need to facilitate reviews with customers will probably find the document sharing service useful, sources suggest. Large businesses--distrustful of third parties in general--might not be so sanguine about sending files with sensitive or proprietary data to Adobe’s servers (or anyone else's) for hosting. They can still set up their own PDF-sharing servers.
If what we're hearing holds true through the planned summer Acrobat 9 release, this Adobe-sponsored PDF sharing service will be announced at the same time. It will be open both to Acrobat users and to those with the free Reader installed. Basically it seems to work like this: Owner uploads document to the server, collaborators can download copies, mark them up, and return them to the server, which likely will sync them into a master document for the owner to retrieve.
Furthermore, another new Adobe-hosted PDF document review tool--called Collaborate Live--appears to leverage former Macromedia Breeze features. It supports real-time chat and document sharing.
Speaking of the product formerly known as Breeze: Acrobat 8 contained a version of Breeze, rebranded as Acrobat Connect. This online meeting tool supports chat and desktop sharing -- and competes with the likes of LiveMeeting and WebEx. Adobe plans to unveil the next generation of this online meeting service, renamed ConnectNow, in Acrobat 9.
While sources say Adobe will be touting ConnectNow as an upgraded "personal web-conference tool, to conduct real-time meetings on your desktop,” the version of ConnectNow our sources saw did not seem to add many new features to the current offering, which is a fee-based service that has little to do with Acrobat or PDF other than being accessible via within Acrobat or Reader.
