Category Archives: Adobe

Adobe, Box, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis

Box and Adobe announce new partnership to simplify PDF’s in the cloud

Adobe and BoxBox and Adobe has announced a new partnership to simplify working with digital documents in the cloud.

The partnership will see the team launch a number of new offerings including Adobe Sign in Box, as well as Access and Edit PDFs from Box. The team claim more than two billion PDFs are currently in Box today and the new partnership will increase efficiency over various departments within the business ecosystem.

“Today’s news is just our latest step toward helping businesses work fully in the cloud by delivering seamless, easy to use connections with all of the services people use to get work done,” said Chris Yeh, SVP of Product and Platform at Box. “In the last year alone, we’ve announced deep integrations with Microsoft, Okta and Salesforce and many others, allowing more businesses across the globe to centralize their most valuable content on our platform. Stay tuned as we continue to advance our mission to transform the way people and organizations work. This is just the beginning.”

The first new feature will enable customers to review documents in Box and route them for electronic signatures in Adobe Sign, allowing customers to manage revisions, secure signatures, track approvals and distribute the final version of any form or contract, entirely within the cloud. Users will also be able to edit PDF’s within Box’s platform, with annotations and edits saved back to Box in real-time, ensuring the latest version of the document is always accessible and avoiding version control issues. On its blog, Adobe also claim the new offering will mean customers will never have to download another file to their computers, as well as the ability to edit PDF’s on any devise, anywhere.

“Organizations worldwide rely on Adobe Document Cloud and Adobe Sign to bring speed and efficiency to processes involving digital documents,” said Bryan Lamkin, GM for Digital Media at Adobe. “Our mission is to simplify and modernize those processes for businesses and people wherever and however they work. Our collaboration with Box will help advance this cause, whether it’s reviewing a new employee benefits handbook with HR stakeholders, sharing the latest creative mockup with your global ad agency, or sending a sales contract for signature by the CEO.”

The collaboration is similar to a previous partnership announced by Adobe last October with Box’s competitor Dropbox. As part of this partnership, Dropbox and Adobe claim to have simplified the way that PDF files can be edited with Adobe apps and also as they sit in Dropbox.

Adobe, Analytics, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis, Retail, Software AG, Wipro

Adobe, Software AG and Wipro show how cloud can manage retail detail

Three major retail technologists have unveiled how the cloud could make retailers more responsive.

German retail technology specialist Software AG has launched a cloud based Smart Store Monitoring systems to give retailers the word from the high street in real time. By interpreting large volumes of data streaming in from sensors, tills and apps in their brick-and-mortar stores, it will help them react quicker to market conditions in the stores and instantly avert problems.

The instant insights could help retailers see how in-store promotions are working and make timely interventions to boost their impact. The intelligence will also help retailers work the Internet of Things (IoT) to maximum effect and move staff to busy areas when needed, according to Oliver Guy, Retail Industry Director at Software AG. The cloud based technology could “persuade marketing managers to fine-tune promotions on the fly and improve their response to different consumers in a particular location,” said Guy.

That calls for more flexible management of the flow of data, which would be enabled by the cloud and the IoT according to Guy. “To benefit from the store’s shifting purpose and growing shopper expectations, retail managers must be able to track, monitor, analyse and optimise all in-store activity in real-time,” said Guy.

Though retailers are optimistic about the value of IoT three common technology barriers were cited in the report: blending a disparity of data sources, choosing the best response to events or expectations and dealing with mass data diversity in real-time.

Software AG claims its Digital Business platform solves these problems by connecting all IoT-enabled data sources, briefing store staff and head-office merchandisers, instantly adjusting

signage and other automated store peripherals and modelling predictions to take pre-emptive action – such as staff or stock replenishment – to nip problems in the bud.

A Wipro study conducted with Planet Retail, which said 82% of retailers it interviewed feel that investments in digital technology and operational improvements would help them target customers as individuals. Those who fail to react to feedback and hyper-personalised offers and promotions will fall behind, it said.

To this end, Adobe has added new services to its Marketing Cloud to help retailers improve the customer experience. The additions include new ‘shoppable media advancements’, advanced push notification and extra Adobe Experience Manager Screen options.

A new emphasis on data-driven remarketing means retailers can connect consumers’ behaviour online with contextual data. Acting on this intelligence they can create user-defined remarketing triggers, such as an email, push notification or SMS, to increase the likelihood of purchase. If a consumer views women’s footwear for several minutes, for example, the retailer can send an email highlighting that product and incentivising the customer with a discount.

Adobe, Content & Applications, Creative Cloud, Financial Results, News & Analysis, Software as a service

Adobe posts 22% Q4 revenue growth, driven by Creative Cloud

AdobeAdobe Systems has claimed it is only just starting to gain from cloud adoption, after reporting record earnings.

Strong growth in subscriptions to Adobe Systems’ Creative Cloud has contributed to the ninth consecutive quarter in which the software vendor topped market expectations, as it reported revenue of $1.31b in Q4 of the fiscal year ending in November 2015. Of this, revenue from its digital media business, including Creative Cloud, rose by 35% to $875.3 million.

The vendor added 833,000 new subscribers to the Creative Cloud in the three months ending in November, some 150,000 more than market analysts expected. Meanwhile, Adobe Marketing Cloud brought in $352 million in revenue thanks to an unexpectedly strong adoption of its software as a service (SaaS) offerings.

Adobe’s strong growth from Creative Cloud has come as enterprises and professionals have adopted the new model of purchasing apps like graphic design tool Photoshop, web design software Dreamweaver and web video building application Flash. According to Adobe 52% of its customers subscribe to the full Creative Cloud bundle, with the remaining 48% subscribing to individual products within the portfolio.

Adobe Systems’ Photoshop Lightroom is now the fastest growing app in its Creative Cloud, CFO Mark Garrett told Reuters. “It’s growing the most because it’s attracting hobbyists and consumers,” he said. Since these were people that would never buy Adobe’s products before, the Creative Cloud and the switch from traditional licensing to web based subscription has expanded its market, Garrett said. “Our financials show that the benefits of our move to the cloud are just beginning.”

Adobe’s digital marketing business, which makes software that analyses customer interactions and manages social media content, grew by just 2.3% in comparison, to $382.7 million.

The company’s shares jumped 4.7% to $93.10 following the release of its latest trading figures.

Adobe, Flash, HTML, News & Analysis, Software as a service

Is Adobe axing Flash under cover of Creative Cloud?

Adobe Animate screenAs an official Adobe blog hailed a ‘new era’ for Flash Professional, the software company seems to be sidelining its creation.

Apple boss Steve Jobs once famously dismissed Flash as proprietary software from the PC age. Now Adobe appears to be admitting it doesn’t have a role in the age of the cloud. While updating readers on developments in its Creative Cloud, Adobe reveals that Flash Professional CC is to be re-branded as Adobe Animate CC in order to “more accurately reflect the content-formats produced by this tool.”

Flash has long been heavily criticised because its proprietary nature made it unsuitable for the web. Jobs said Apple would never consider Flash for any of its phones tablets because “we know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps.”

Latterly, the high power needed by devices running Adobe would make it unsuitable for the cloud, while the lack of openness would, in Jobs’ words, “hinder the progress of the platform.”

Adobe explains, in its blog, that “open web standards and HTML5 have become the dominant standard” and that “Flash Professional CC product team has embraced this movement by rewriting the tool from the ground up”. Adding native support for HTML5 Canvas and WebGL, in addition to supporting output to any format was such a ‘hug hit’ with Adobe customers that, in a short space of time, a third of all content produced in Flash Professional CC is HTML5-based, reaching over 1 billion devices worldwide.

The name change reflects the downgrading of Flash’s role in Creative Cloud. However, in another official blog post the vendor explains that Adobe Animate CC will continue to support Flash (SWF) and AIR formats ‘as first-class citizens’, as well as other formats like broadcast-quality video. “We will continue improving Animate CC’s HTML5 capabilities over time, while optimizing its core animation and authoring feature set,” said Rich Lee, senior product marketing manager for Creative Cloud web products.

In the cloud, it was the lack of stability and security that dissuaded Apple from using Flash.

Flash was highlighted by Symantec for having one of the worst security records in 2009. Steve Jobs once said he knew first hand Flash is the top reason for Apple device crashes. “We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash,” Jobs once said. Now, it seems, Adobe has accepted that Flash isn’t right for the cloud.

Adobe, Content & Applications, Document Management, DropBox, News & Analysis, Storage, Storage as a Service

Adobe tweaks Document Cloud to unblock Dropbox and make e-signing easier

AdobeAdobe has announced two improvements to document management in the cloud, by making PDF files more manageable in Dropbox and solving one of the snags in electronic document signing.

One billion users of Adobe Acrobat DC and Adobe Acrobat Reader will now be able to edit PDFs as they sit in Dropbox folders, the vendor has announced, as it has worked with Dropbox to simplify the way that PDF files can be edited with Adobe apps.

According to Adobe, the billion mobile devices and desktop computers in the world that have Adobe Acrobat software contain 18 billion PDF files whose functions are limited by Dropbox. The blockage that stopped users from editing those files has now been removed as part of a drive to make Adobe Document Cloud more efficient, the vendor claims.

The improvement was achieved after the two companies integrated their applications and services on mobile devices, desktops and the web, according to Kevin M. Lynch, general manager of Adobe Document Cloud.

Users can now view and edit PDF files stored in their Dropbox Basic, Pro and Dropbox for Business accounts with any changes automatically saved back to Dropbox. Collaboration has also been simplified, Abode claims, as Acrobat DC users can now execute the full range of tasks promised by the application. Editing text on PDF files, organising pages and converting documents to their original format will no longer be hindered by Dropbox environment. Meanwhile, the synchronisation of documents will no longer be restricted by glitches between Adobe and Dropbox operating software.

Adobe has had to adjust as customers have constantly evolved, said Lynch. “Today, mobile has become the rule and people expect to complete work quickly and simply wherever and whenever they need. Our work with Dropbox will help Document Cloud customers be more productive,” said Lynch.

Adobe has also created new options for e-signing in Document Cloud in a bid to make electronic document management easier. New functions include a visual drag-and-drop Workflow Designer, digital signatures (a more advanced secure form of e-signatures) and Enterprise Mobility Management and Signature Capture.

Adobe said it has worked with Workday, Salesforce and Ariba to add e-signing options to their respective HR, sales, procurement and legal systems.

Bryan Lamkin, Adobe digital media’s general manager, promised, “a new level of efficiency”.

Adobe, Adobe Max, Contests, Events, Giveaways, Parallels Desktop, Parallels Desktop 11, Parallels Desktop for Mac, Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition, Parallels Desktop Pro

Parallels at Adobe Max Giveaway!

Featured image courtesy of Adobe Max. This week, we’re heading to Adobe Max! We’re really excited to get to go to Los Angeles and hang out with so many creative leaders, designers, developers, strategists, video pros, photographers, and more! Come visit us on-site at Adobe Max at booth #615 to talk about all of the amazing work creative […]

The post Parallels at Adobe Max Giveaway! appeared first on Parallels Blog.

Adobe, Flash, Mozilla, News & Analysis, Steve Jobs, Twitter

Adobe under renewed pressure to kill Flash following security issues

Much of the world's digital video content is still served up on Flash

Much of the world’s digital video content is still served up on Flash

Adobe Flash, the video and graphics platform that was once almost ubiquitous across computing devices is coming under increasing pressure after a series of security vulnerabilities, reports Telecoms.com.

Such has been the severity of these vulnerabilities that Mozilla has added all versions of Flash to the block list for the Firefox Browser. In addition the new Chief Security Officer of Facebook used Twitter to call for Adobe to announce an end-of-life date for Flash.

This probably marks the end game for a piece of software that was once considered central to the consumption of multimedia content, both on PC and mobile. The first and probably most damaging Emperor’s New Clothes moment was in 2010 when the late Apple boss Steve Jobs addressed a furore around Apple’s diminishing support for Flash.

An Adobe-affiliated blogger has even gone so far as to demand Apple screw itself, and Jobs saw fit to put the Apple view forward.  Among Jobs’ criticisms of Flash was its security, saying: “Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.”

A couple of years later Android followed suit and the industry on the whole has been looking to reduce its exposure to Flash ever since, with tech such as HTML5 being of significant assistance in this regard. The writing appears to be on the wall for Flash, and it will be interesting to see if Adobe is capable of pulling the plug on it in a sensible and dignified way.

Adobe, Cloud computing, Miscellaneous IT, software

Adobe’s Out of Box Thinking and Into the Cloud

By Rob O’Shaughnessy, Software Licensing Specialist

 

I attended Adobe’s MAX conference in rainy, LA, California last week and I felt bad, as a local, that a lot of travelers had to witness our once a quarter rainfall, however with all the forest fires ranging around SoCal it was an unexpected relief.  Adobe put some fires out on their own by providing some great insight as to what they are doing to the software community.

It was the first time that partners and Adobe sales team members were invited to this mostly technical event.   The room was divided between the cool hipster “Creatives” and the button-up suit with no tie looking sales people.  It was a 7th grade dance before the first slow song was played, but we were all there for the same purpose; to find out what’s going on with Creative Cloud.

So let’s backup if you haven’t heard of Creative Cloud.  Several months ago Adobe began offering a subscription-based licensing model for their creative products.  The Creative Cloud is essentially everything that’s included in the Creative Suite Master Collection.    It’s a subscription-based licensing model which gives you all the Adobe creative products for a monthly fee.  Like Creative Suite, it’s also an on-premise product so ultimately the big difference between the two boils down to how you want to purchase it – to subscribe to it or own it.

The biggest announcement at MAX was that moving forward Adobe will no longer provide future releases of Creative Suite or other CS products.  Like Rocky, Creative Suite has ended at version 6, so moving forward if you wanted to obtain the latest and greatest technology and features you will need to move to the Creative Cloud.  Also if you like box product, Adobe will no longer be offering shrink-wrap as well.  Customer will now need to purchase a volume license or jump into the Cloud.

In my opinion this is a good thing, because as a Creative it’s important to be up to date with all the latest enhancements that Adobe provides as it will allow access to all the cutting edge technology instantly as it comes out, instead of waiting every 18 months for Adobe to compile a list of enhancements and release an upgrade.  Plus the promo price till August 31st ($39.99 per month) is less than what I spend at the local pub, err I mean coffee shop.

 

If you’re interested in Creative Cloud and want to learn more about subscribing new users and co-terming future users, please fill out this form.