Adobe unveils "its most important" Acrobat

SAN JOSE: Adobe Systems Inc. will unveil new versions of its Acrobat software, in what its President and Chief Executive Bruce Chizen said would be "the most important product announcement in the history of the company."

Adobe's latest lineup of Acrobat document-sharing products include new, repackaged and updated offerings, all of which should be shipped no later than the end of the current quarter ending in May.

Acrobat is key to Adobe's fast-growing ePaper division that contributes around one-third of the Silicon Valley publishing software shop's total annual revenues. Chizen said the new Acrobat products will lead to "significant" revenue growth this year by enabling Adobe to expand its reach into large companies. He declined to give specific revenue details.

On average, analysts polled by Wall Street tracking firm Thomson First Call see the company's revenues growing to $1.24 billion for the fiscal year ended November, up 7 percent from $1.16 billion in fiscal 2002. Acrobat uses portable document format (PDF) to capture elements of a printed document as an electronic image, enabling people to print, view and send documents without altering their appearance.

As part of the new product line-up, Adobe will roll out Acrobat Elements, a stripped-down version of its existing Acrobat product. Acrobat Elements will allow users to easily create secure, shareable PDF documents and give Adobe a lower-cost way to put its Acrobat technology in the hands of more corporate workers. Adobe aims to sell multiple seats of the software and has set the price for 1,000 licenses at $29 per unit.

Chizen said Adobe's former Acrobat product has been renamed Acrobat Standard, beefed up with new features, and made easier to use. Among other things, Acrobat Standard's new functions will give users a way to track and manage documents moving through a work group, digitally sign documents, and add such things as Web site content to Adobe PDF files. Acrobat Standard will be priced at $299, $50 higher than Adobe's old Acrobat software. The company's high-end offering is Acrobat Professional, priced at $449 per unit.

The updated Acrobat Professional software targets engineers and architects, creative professionals and others who want complete control over the documents they create, Chizen said. The software was built to support sophisticated, multi-layered drawings, to give users even more control over high-end print jobs, and to enable electronic form creation.

Chizen also said the company is changing the name of its free Acrobat Reader to Adobe Reader. Adobe shares finished Friday's regular Nasdaq session at $32.20, down about 16 percent from a year earlier.

© Reuters