Adobe Connect Blog

by Guillaume Privat, Director, Adobe Connect Business Unit

In 2011, Adobe Connect reached a remarkable milestone.  We delivered more than 3 billion minutes on our hosted platform.  This number would be even bigger if we could add the usage numbers from our large on-premise user base.

This is no surprise.  Year after year, we have observed that organizations that deploy Adobe Connect experience exponential usage growth compared to any previous solution that they have deployed before.  Most credit the ease of use, the persistence of the meeting room which allows for synchronous / a-synchronous collaboration and the development of remote learning, triggered by all the learner engagement features provided by Adobe Connect.

In addition, we have seen a rapid adoption of our mobile application on iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod), Android or QNX (Blackberry Playbook).  In 2011, accesses from mobile devices are more than double accesses from Linux or Unix based platform and quickly progressing.

We are set to continue this growth trend in 2012 with exciting upcoming new releases, Adobe Connect 9 and new versions of our mobile applications to further enable tablet to tablet collaboration.

Last week, more than 69,000 people pledged to telework as a part of “Telework Week 2012”. The result: More than $5.5 million saved and 3,358 tons of pollutants removed from the air. It’s no argument the positive impact that teleworking has on the environment, but what about the impact on individuals and companies?

Studies show that employees who work remotely feel a better sense of personal freedom, flexibility and work-life balance. The option to work from home is also a big draw for job seekers. For companies, telecommuting expands the talent pool, reduces the spread of illness, reduces costs, and increases productivity.

With the right tools and technologies, the benefits of teleworking seem limitless. Advancements in Web conferencing solutions like Adobe Connect have made it easier for globally dispersed teams to communicate effectively. Trainings, workshops and classes can easily be given and taken online, and organizations can effortlessly deliver presentations to employees, customers and partners – no matter where they are in the world. In addition to Web conferencing; social networking, IM and traditional e-mail continue to be the preferred forms of communication for teleworkers.

Bottom line: remote employees can just as easily, if not better, collaborate, complete work faster, and drive better results.

Next week, we’ll be examining specific tips and tricks on how to make the most out of working remotely. Are you a teleworker? If so, what benefits and drawbacks do you experience? If you do not work remotely, would you consider participating in Telework Week next year?

by Guillaume Privat, Director, Adobe Connect Business Unit

Yesterday, Apple launched the new iPad.  Yet another technical marvel from the Cupertino firm.  What I found the most interesting is from the launch presentation was some of the numbers Tim Cook unveiled.  One statistics in particular: 15.4 million iPads sold last quarter, which is more than the number of PCs sold by any single PC maker in that quarter.

It is clear that Tablet are fast becoming the computing device of choice of many knowledge workers.  Yet until now, most web conferencing vendors assumed that people would use tablet just to consume meeting from their device.  Not to run meetings.  With the increasing adoption of tablets, it is clear that customers will expect to do tablet to tablet collaboration.

As a result, when assessing web conferencing solutions, decision makers should consider not only whether you can attend a meeting, a webinar or a virtual classroom from a tablet, but most importantly, can you host a meeting from a tablet and collaborate tablet to tablet.

If your webconferencing solution supports only screen sharing, it is not going to work on tablet.  No tablet operating system supports screen sharing today and it is not clear that it is in the roadmap of any.  Most importantly, the overall user experience of multi-tasking on the tablet does note lend itself well to screen sharing.  As a result it is clear that most collaboration will happen on up-loaded documents.

Uploading documents into a meeting space is not straightforward.  Many solutions convert your powerpoint file into a viewable format by running processes locally on your desktop (often calling Microsoft Powerpoint executables).  This mode of conversion is no longer available on the tablet, so the conversion needs to happen in the cloud.

If you are evaluating a web conferencing vendor an plan to use the solution for table to tablet collaboration, you should make sure that:

1) they offer other sharing options than screen sharing and

2) that their document conversion upload is server based (and does not occur locally).

Adobe Connect supports screen sharing and document upload for multiple format.  All our conversion is server based and does not require mandatory client side conversion.

Our Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 application enable not only to attend meetings, but also virtual classrooms or seminars.  It enables user also to host a classroom, a meeting or a webinar.  Our mobile 2.0 currently in beta will enable you to do much more and provide a great tablet to tablet meeting experience.

Can not wait to run my next Adobe Connect meeting on the new iPad !