BIOS: Technology Means Business

Adobe Systems (Nasdaq:ADBE) has announced the immediate availability of Acrobat 8 software amid an enthusiastic early reception from knowledge workers worldwide who for months have tested and provided feedback to help the company fine tune the product line.

The new Acrobat 8 provides business professionals with innovative tools for communicating and collaborating with confidence across the boundaries of operating systems, applications and firewalls.

With Acrobat 8, users can now more effectively engage with the rich, high-value information in PDF documents and forms, and more reliably and securely drive their work to completion leveraging the ubiquitous, free Adobe Reader software, claims the company.

Acrobat 8 builds on Adobe’s heritage in the digital documents business, and unveils a truly comprehensive set of capabilities for working with PDF documents within a sleek, modern user experience. The product line introduces several major innovations for professionals in a wide variety of areas, such as architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), IT, legal, marketing, manufacturing, and publishing.

Adobe also announced the immediate availability of a free trial of the Adobe Acrobat Connect hosted service, the first web conferencing and collaboration solution to offer ‘always-on’ personal meeting rooms. Acrobat Connect enables knowledge workers to instantly connect online with nothing more than a web browser and the ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player software. Together with Acrobat 8, the newly expanded Acrobat family accelerates the flow of business by allowing people to easily work together in real-time.

The Acrobat family consists of Acrobat 8 Professional, Acrobat 8 Standard, Acrobat 8 Elements, Acrobat 3D Version 8, Acrobat Connect, and Acrobat Connect Professional.

Acrobat 8 Professional for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, and Acrobat 8 Standard for Windows, are immediately available in English, French, German, and Japanese language versions. The Mac OS X version of Acrobat 8 Professional is a Universal Binary that will install on Intel and PowerPC based Macintosh systems.

Acrobat 8 Professional is available for an estimated street price of $449, and registered users of qualifying earlier versions of Acrobat1 can upgrade to Acrobat 8 Professional for an estimated street price of $159. Acrobat 8 Standard is available for an estimated street price of $299, and registered users of qualifying earlier versions of Acrobat2 can upgrade to Acrobat 8 Standard for an estimated street price of $99.

The Acrobat Connect hosted service is immediately available as a free trial through the end of the current calendar year. The trial can be accessed via the ‘Start Meeting’ button in Acrobat 8 and Adobe Reader 8, and directly at www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect. The commercial release of Acrobat Connect, initially in English, is expected to be available in January 2007 for a subscription price of $39 per month, or $395 per year per personal meeting room.

Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 Premium software, which includes Acrobat 8 Professional and also bundles Dreamweaver 8 software, is expected to be available on 8 November. More information on the Acrobat family, including Acrobat 3D Version 8, Acrobat 8 Elements, and Acrobat Connect Professional, is available online at www.adobe.com/acrobat.

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