Adobe's PowerPoint competitor is launched today in Adobe Labs

May 28, 2009 13:26 GMT  ·  By

Adobe is one of the biggest software makers in the world and has made its fortune traditionally with several key software products for the desktop. But it too knows that web applications are the future and so it is moving to the 'cloud' with several of its products, the latest of which to be launched is Acrobat.com Presentations, an online presentation tool to compete with the PowerPoint web application.

With Google Apps having been around for a while now and Microsoft offering a web version of the upcoming Office 2010, Adobe is keeping up with its new web app. Currently Acrobat.com Presentations is in beta and missing many features but the company decided make it available in its Adobe Labs project. Still, it can be useful even in its current state as most of the basic features are there. "The application includes built-in tools and layouts for adding visually appealing elements, such as pre-defined color sets, intelligent image placement and graphic tools for creating diagrams and adding effects," Adobe said in a statement.

A key feature of the software is the fact that it allows multiple users to edit and work on the presentation at the same time. A user will choose a slide to work on and he will be the only one able to edit it while others will focus on other parts of the presentation. "With simultaneous editing capabilities, no one is locked out of the presentation while others are making changes," Adobe said. "The application also makes it easy to see who has access to the presentation, who is viewing, who is editing and which slide each person is editing."

What sets Acrobat.com Presentation apart is that, just like the rest of Adobe's office suite, it is built on Flash, which allows it to have better graphics and functionality. But this of course requires that the flash plug-in be installed for the browser. Competing office suites, like Google Apps, use JavaScript for the rendering while Microsoft will enable extra features for users with its Flash rival Silverlight.