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Filed under: Office, Adobe, Web

Acrobat.com goes pro

Acrobat.com premium
Adobe has taken the beta label off of its web-based Acrobat.com office suite. And while you can still create and share text documents and presentations for free, you'll need to upgrade to a paid account for up to $39/month or $390/year to unlock advanced features like the ability to create unlimited PDF files, share larger files, or host meetings with up to 20 people. Acrobat.com Premium users also get paid support.

If you don't sign up for a premium account, you'll be limited to creating 5 PDF files per month, web conferences will be limited to 3 users, and you'll be stuck with just 100 file downloads per month. There's also a cheaper plan for $14.99/month or $149/year that falls somewhere between the free and Premium Plus plans.

Adobe is also rolling out an experimental spreadsheet app called Tables as part of Acrobat.com Labs.

I can understand why Adobe would decide to create a subscription-based service in order to make some money off of their product. What I can't understand is why anyone looking for an office suite for personal use would choose to use Acrobat.com instead of alternatives like Zoho Docs, Google Docs, or even a desktop application like Microsoft Office, which might cost more up front, but which doesn't have ongoing subscription costs.

Then again, maybe the goal was never to market Acrobat.com to personal users. The key may be the web conferencing and support features, which could make Acrobat.com an attractive option for small businesses in need of collaboration tools.


[via CNET]

Filed under: Internet, Office, Adobe, Beta, Web

Adobe launches online presentations app (web based PowerPoint)

Acrobat Presentations
When Adobe launched its online office suite at Acrobat.com last year the site was a bit on the anemic side. Sure, it featured the slick Flash-based Buzzword word processor. But it lacked a good spreadsheet or presentations application. There's still no spreadsheet app in sight, but today Adobe added an attractive tool for viewing and editing presentations to Acrobat Labs.

Like Buzzword, Acrobat Presentations is built on Flash. It features the smooth and attractive animations you'd expect from a Flash-based application. But it's also fairly intuitive to use. At the top of the screen are a series of icons which expand into toolbars to give you access to the features you need at any given moment. The left side of the screen shows thumbnails for each slide, while the slide itself hangs out in the center for your viewing, creating, or editing pleasure. Or you can hit the Play Slideshow button in the bottom right corner if you just want to sit back and enjoy the show.

Because the application is built on Flash, the right-click button on your mouse is useless which MS Office addicts might find frustrating at first. But Acrobat Presentations does give you most of the tools you'd expect from a presentation application, plus online collaboration tools. You can share your presentations with other users and let them edit your files.

[via VentureBeat]

Filed under: Internet, Office, Google, Microsoft

Study: 73% of Americans have never heard of Google Docs

We spend a lot oNPD studyf time talking about Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Zoho, and other online office suites. For the most part they don't have all the features of Microsoft Office, but they attempt to make up for that in convenience (access them from any computer) and price (usually free). But we've always had a suspicion that most computer users have never heard of these web based office suites. And if you believe a recent NPD survey of 600 PC users, we were right.

According to the study, 94 percent of US computer users have never tried a web based productivity suite. More than 20 percent say they've at least heard of Google Docs or other suites, but have still never tried them. And only 0.5 percent of users say they've replaced Microsoft Office with an online office suite.

So while online office suites are perfectly serviceable replacements for Microsoft Office if you don't need advanced formatting options or other fancy features, the simple truth is most people just aren't ready to let go of Microsoft Office. That makes Microsoft's online Office strategy a bit more understandable. We may have slammed the company for failing to offer a standalone word processor, spreadsheet app, or presentation platform online, (Office Live Documents simply provides a way to access documents created on your desktop from the web), but Microsoft isn't worried about the competition from Google, Zoho, ThinkFree, or anyone else at the moment. Not in the short term anyway. Office Live Documents is just a new bonus feature for many users, not an alternative to Google Docs.

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