14 DAY TRIAL // Concomitantly with the release of Adobe Acrobat 8 software, Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced that a free trial version of the Acrobat Connect software product line will be available from November 2006. In this context, Acrobat Connect will be delivered on a subscription basis for $395/year/user or $39/month/user. Adobe informed via a press release that is considering offering updates of Acrobat Connect Professional to licensed users of Macromedia Breeze.
"We believe web collaboration needs to be as easy as sending and viewing a PDF document, so anyone can reap the benefits of meeting online in real-time," said Tom Hale, senior vice president, Knowledge Worker Business Unit, Adobe. "Since nearly everyone already has the Flash Player installed, Acrobat Connect makes it extremely easy to go from looking at your computer screen to sharing it with others, regardless of their platform or version of software."
Acrobat Connect software product line is designed as a web conferencing and collaboration solution, enabling connection via a web browser and the Flash Player. "Casual web conferencing users have different needs than intensive users," said Jeffrey Mann, Research Vice President for Gartner, Inc. "Lightweight collaboration requires easy-to-use tools in order to spread throughout an organization. Users participating in processes which require intensive use of collaborative functionality need more capabilities. Catering for both use cases will increase flexibility and enable richer interactions."
Requiring only a web destination acting as an ad-hoc and "always-on" personal meeting room, Acrobat Connect delivers interactive web conferencing and real-time collaboration to a number of up to 15 participants in the price of the monthly subscription.