Adobe Cloud Acrobat-ics

Adobe’s offering to the SaaS (Software As A Service) world is Acrobat.com, not to be confused with the famous document software that has been around for years. Acrobat.com is a suite of products offered that include Buzzword for word processing, and Connect Now for collaboration work.

The first thing I noticed was a very clean UI reminiscent of the iPod/iPhone juggernaut, which admittedly goes a long way with me. There are four buttons to get where you are going. To launch a document, click on Buzzword. Buzzword has full word processing capabilities; you can create and edit a document, then share with others. Microsoft Word docs can be opened from Buzzword, and saved as such. However that part isn’t very intuitive. You have to use Export a file to save to your hard drive, rather than Save As… which merely allows a user to change the name of their file.

Performance on the Beta site was snappy. Uploads of existing Word files (such as my weekly column) were great. However I was less than thrilled by the fact that my Word doc saved in the commonplace Arial font, did not open in Arial. In fact, that font was nowhere to be found, only seven fonts are available. But my file did look good in Acrobat. When saving my file back to the hard drive, I lost some of my fancy formatting. If you're like me, you won't appreciate losing your handiwork, not to mention the time it took to make your docs snazzy.

Perhaps the final version will contain some of the more common fonts, but it's good practice to notify the user that their document will open in a slightly different format.

Another option is Save PDF, which allows users to save their docs in the ubiquitous PDF format. You can pull a file from the hard drive or from the cloud and convert to PDF. Editing a PDF file is another matter, and you must use the conventional Acrobat software to do so. 

One icon that is always available is the Meet icon, which sends a Connect Now request, the other Twin Peak of Acrobat.com. Connect Now allows the you to setup meetings, mail URLs to additional participants and allows a certain amount of screen control. The views differ depending on your classification; there are 3 to choose from: "host", "participant" or "audience", all of which can be controlled by the host. All docs can be shared at any time, complete with annotations. Other nifty features are Whiteboard and Webcam, which allows for full videoconferencing.

Performance was acceptable when I added a couple of friends and webcams, but could be quicker. Latency was acceptable. However, loading a PowerPoint (25 slides) file for sharing with others took nearly 5 minutes.

I find it very bothersome that the main menu is not accessible once you leave it. In other words, I cannot go from Buzzword to Share PDF unless I open the root webpage. Once I’m in Meeting mode, I cannot open Buzzword to edit in one or two clicks. Resizing the Meet window is impossible, it is either all the way open or minimized.

Overall, I like the look and feel of Acrobat a good deal - never underestimate the power of a clean interface to get users hooked. Buzzword should match up well against Google Apps, and the web conferencing option has the potential to be a staple of cloud conferencing.  But the inability to jump between segments of Acrobat is glaring, and the performance in uploading large files is a source of concern that needs to be addressed in the beta product.  With competing products already out there, end-to-end performance will be a key factor in deciding whether Acrobat.com can attract a new generation to its way of collaboration. 

Comments

[Laura wilson]

For web conferences you should try http://www.showdocument.com ,
Great for online teaching and collaborating. I use it for working on my designs with other in my field.
Its free and pretty simple - you just upload your file and invite others to view it together.
- Laura W.