Adobe Connect Blog

We’re excited to announce the release of Adobe Connect Mobile 2.1, now available for iOS and Android.  The new release delivers significant enhancements for mobile learning in virtual classrooms, as well as several other feature updates and optimized support for iPad Mini and iPhone 5.

Over the past year, we have continued to see tremendous demand from our users for the ability to offer mobile access to training, whether in live or on-demand formats.  Mobile learning is becoming a necessity for more and more organizations and institutions, with learners demanding access to training when a laptop or desktop isn’t handy, and trainers needing to deliver training outside of the classroom.

Last year, Adobe Connect delivered a complete mobile learning solution through Adobe Connect 9 and our Mobile 2.0 client, supporting virtual classroom access, rich learner interactions, and tracking of on-demand training including Adobe Captivate and Presenter content.  In addition, complete hosting capability was delivered to trainers to fully host virtual classes directly from their mobile device.

With Adobe Connect Mobile 2.1, we’ve continued to innovate around mobile learning, enabling trainers to deploy training in Adobe Presenter format, and learners to conveniently access courses and content directly through the Adobe Connect mobile client when participating in a virtual class.  Learner progress and interactions can be tracked within the Adobe Connect Learning Management System or another integrated system of record, as they interact with training from anywhere, on virtually any device.

New features include:

• Deliver, interact with, and track Adobe Presenter training content in virtual classrooms, supporting multiple choice, true/false, and matching questions
• Viewing of meeting background imagery for personalization and branding
• Two live webcams (user and another attendee), and unlimited paused webcams, can be viewed simultaneously
• More information on features and updates can be found in the release notes here

Adobe Connect Mobile 2.1 is now available for free download on iTunes Preview here, and the Google Play Store here.

The app supports the following devices and operating systems:

Apple:

• Devices: iPad2, iPad3, iPad with Retina display, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (4^th and 5^th generations)
• Supported OS versions: iOS 5 or higher

Android:

• Devices: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1 and 7.0), Samsung Galaxy Tab (10.1), Nexus 7, HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Atrix, Motorola Xoom, Motorola Xoom 2, Samsung Galaxy SII/SIII
• Supported OS versions:  2.3.4 and higher

Over the past year, recognition continued to roll in for Adobe Connect.  Another great review that came in at the end of 2012 was from Network World.

Network World conducted side-by-side comparisons of eight of the leading Web conferencing vendors and ranked Adobe Connect in a tie for first. The Network World web conferencing vendor test ranked the services according to four scenarios ranging from meetings of two to five people to large scale webinars.

We were excited to see the areas where the review praised Adobe Connect, including the ability to host large-scale webinars calling it a “post-conferencing reporting powerhouse.” Network World also noted “Connect also has the strongest features when it came to measuring audience engagement and supporting archival meeting content.” Other areas where Network World positioned Adobe Connect above other offerings were the recording options available, including the ability to record the chats and participants names, and its mobile client, noting its “consistent user interfaces and clean look.”

In addition, the review discussed persistent URLs for Adobe Connect meeting rooms, calling them “handy when a team is working over a period of time on a set of documents.” As our customers know, this feature is also useful for setting up last-minute, ad hoc meetings.

Another area the review considered was the audio options each service provides. Our own Alistair Lee recently blogged about our Universal Voice feature, which lets users leverage VoIP or their audio provider of choice.

We’re interested in what you have to say, though, after you give the roundup review a read. Let us know what stands out, good and bad, and what you’d like to see more of from us moving forward.

In October, we announced a major update to our DCO Connect Mobile app for Android devices, enabling anywhere, anytime mobile collaboration leveraging Adobe Connect web conferencing  across over 700,000 users at the U.S. Department of Defense.  Today, we’re very excited to announce that the DCO Connect Mobile app is now available for iOS, delivering complete hosting, presenting, and sharing controls to fully drive collaboration and fulfill the many different use cases DoD personnel have for collaboration while operating in a mobile environment.

The capabilities map to those of the standard Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0 app, and include:

• Start and end meetings (B)
• Start, stop, and manage meeting audio and teleconferencing bridge
• Invite others to the meeting
• Manage participants (B)
• Start and stop recordings
• Enable web camera rights for all participants at once
• Control all active pods (B)
• Switch between layouts in the meeting room
• Present content (e.g. advancing slides and animations) (B)
• Share content from share history
• Share content from Adobe Connect content library
• Share content from local device photo library
• Video conferencing with front and back-facing camera support (B)
• Use drawing tools (pencil, highlighter, shapes) on whiteboard and on top of shared files/video
• Use emoticons: Raise Hand (B), Agree / Disagree (B), Speak Louder / Speak Softer, Speed Up / Slow Down, Laughter, Applause
• Stepped away indication appears when multi-tasking away from app
• Device phone number detected and populated when joining audio
• Participate in breakout rooms

(Some features apply to tablets only; “B” indicates both smartphone and tablet)

DCO Connect Mobile (version 2.0) is now available for free download on iTunes Preview here.

(Note that this app pertains to those with a DCO account only; users who will not use this app in relation to DCO can download our Adobe Connect Mobile app here).

The app supports the following devices and operating systems on iOS:

- Devices: iPad, iPad2, iPad3; iPhone 4 and 4 S, iPod touch (3rd generation minimum recommended)
- Supported OS versions: iOS 4.3.x, 5.x, or 6.x (5.x or higher recommended)

For more information, please see these resources below:
Adobe Connect Mobile webpage
Getting Started Guide – Hosts and Presenters (Tablets)
Getting Started Guide – Hosts and Presenters (Smartphones)
Getting Started Guide – Participants (Tablets)
Getting Started Guide – Participants (Smartphones)

As effective as Adobe Connect is with helping companies collaborate more efficiently and save costs in a variety of areas, what often gets overlooked is how various government agencies are benefitting from the use of Adobe Connect.

Recently, FedTech and StateTech Magazines, which focus on the government’s use of technology, spotlighted how the Department of Defense and the Bainbridge Island Police Department are using Adobe Connect Web conferencing in their everyday operations.

Those of you who follow this blog know that Adobe Connect has been used in the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Connect Online (DCO) program for some time, but you may not know that the DoD expanded its use of Adobe Connect to support Adobe Connect Mobile in its new Defense Information System Agency’s (DISA) Mobile Project.  FedTech Magazine interviewed DISA enterprise collaboration services program manager, Karl Kurz, who talked about how the agency uses Adobe Connect. One of the more interesting uses Kurz talked about is how DCO allows deployed soldiers to keep in touch with family members back home. Kurz said with Adobe Connect, “The ability to respond to visual cues and to see dynamic content on another person’s computer makes this form of communication much more effective than other less media-rich methods.”

StateTech Magazine sat down with Detective Trevor Ziemba of the Bainbridge Island Police Department to discuss its unique use of Adobe Connect. For the last three years, the department has been using Adobe Connect along with Connect Mobile to assist in maritime response, allowing the department to quickly initiate video-conferencing sessions with county and state SWAT teams. Ziemba said, “I could shoot live feeds and still photos and feed it to others in the video conference, and we had the same capabilities as the original system — the ability to interact, share files and data, text and talk via [Voice over IP].”

You can get the full stories of these Adobe Connect applications at the magazines’ websites or by clicking the links above. And if you have any unique use cases for Adobe Connect, we’d love to hear them, so feel free to share in the comments below.

The Adobe Connect team is excited to announce that a newly updated version of the DCO Connect Mobile app is now available for Android devices! The latest update brings enhanced hosting controls for complete mobile-to-mobile collaboration and training, especially from tablet devices.

Originally launched in 2007, DCO (Defense Connect Online) leverages Adobe Connect web conferencing and instant messaging/presence via an XMPP client, to enable anywhere, anytime collaboration across over 700,000 users at the U.S. Department of Defense. Given the globally dispersed user base, and necessity to collaborate, train, and coordinate time critical efforts, it is not practical to expect users to be at a desk to initiate or drive virtual meetings or training. With this in mind, the updated DCO Connect Mobile app delivers even greater hosting, presenting, and sharing controls to completely drive collaboration and fulfill the many different use cases DoD personnel have for collaboration while operating in a mobile environment.

In addition to the existing features for tablets and smartphones (including hosting/attending meetings, participant management, 2-way video, VoIP, chat, and other interactive features), the updated capabilities include:

• Start, stop, and manage meeting audio and teleconferencing bridge
• Invite others to the meeting
• Start and stop recordings
• Enable web camera rights for all participants at once
• Switch between layouts in the meeting room
• Share content from share history
• Share content from Adobe Connect content library
• Share content from local device photo library or file storage (SD Card)
• Use drawing tools (pencil, highlighter, shapes) on whiteboard and on top of shared files/video
• Use emoticons: Raise Hand (B), Agree / Disagree (B), Speak Louder / Speak Softer, Speed Up / Slow Down, Laughter, Applause
• Stepped away indication appears when multi-tasking away from app
• Device phone number detected and populated when joining audio
• Participate in breakout rooms
(Most new features apply to tablets only; “B” indicates both smartphone and tablet)

Hosts can now whiteboard and annotate with the tip of a finger, change layouts, and foster interaction with a range of emoticons.

In addition to existing hosting controls (begin/end meetings, manage attendance, manage attendee roles – Host, Presenter, or Participant, etc.), hosts can now fully control meeting recordings, audio conferencing, and video.

Share presentations, videos, images and other content stored in your library in the cloud; in the image library; or on the device drive itself.

DCO Connect Mobile (version 2.0) is now available for free download on the Google Play Store.

The app supports the following devices and operating systems on Android:
- Devices: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), Nexus 7, Samsung Galaxy Tab (10.1), ASUS Transformer, Samsung Galaxy Tab (7”) , Motorola Xoom, Motorola Xoom 2
- Supported OS versions: 2.2 and higher
- AIR Runtime required: 3.2 or higher

For more information, please see these resources below:
Adobe Connect Mobile webpage
Getting Started Guide – Hosts and Presenters (Tablets)
Getting Started Guide – Hosts and Presenters (Smartphones)
Getting Started Guide – Participants (Tablets)
Getting Started Guide – Participants (Smartphones)

Last year, we had a very successful Adobe Connect User group for Government Customers in Wahsington DC.  To view a recap of the event, click here.  We are holding our second edition of this meeting next week, on September 19th in Washington DC.

If you are working in a Government agencies and are using Adobe Connect for telework or emergency response, continuity of operations, training or collaboration, you should plan on attending the event. We will be covering a lot of topics around the recent launch of Adobe Connect 9, how mobility is reshaping collaboration and e-learning:

• Discover the latest technical enhancements in Adobe Connect 9 and how it introduces innovations in comprehensive webinars, mobile collaboration, and mobile learning.
• Learn how to leverage your current video teleconferencing solutions to collaborate in the conference room and on your mobile device.
• Hear from and network with fellow colleagues about how they use Adobe Connect.
• Learn how to report, manage, and track to provide comprehensive results.
• Learn best practices for webcasts to enhance user experience.

But most importantly, you will be able to network with your peers using Adobe Connect and interact with the Adobe Connect Government Product Management team to give feed-back and provide input on what you would like to see in the future releases of the product.

As we know everyone is extremely busy, we kept the meeting to half a day from 8am to noon.  To learn more or register, follow this link: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e681kv3if3ec3d83&llr=y9xzrxdab

See you next week in DC !

Welcome back from your labor day break !  I hope you had a great summer.  If you have not paid attention to some of the announcements made by Adobe over the summer in the e-learning space, let me recap them briefly:

- Captivate 6 was introduced in July with the ability to publish to HTML5 , in order to publish e-learning content that can work cross devices.

- Presenter 8 was introduced in July part of the new e-Learning Suite release.  Along with Presenter 8 came an iOS app available for free on the app store.   It enables to play back Presenter authored content on any iOS device.

- Adobe Connect 9 was launched in August with the ability to support SCORM content and to support HTML5 content like the one out-put by Captivate 6.  It also introduced a brand new registration catalog based on Adobe CQ leading web content management platform.

- Connect Mobile 2.0 app became available both on the AppStore and Google Play as a free app.  It enables not only learners to attend a virtual classroom from any device, but most importably teacher to teach a class from any device, with the ability to whiteboard, load documents, change lay-outs etc…

All these announcements mean that today using all the tools that make up our Adobe Digital Learning Solution, you can author content that will run on any device, add this content in structured curriculum our courses, deploy these courses live or on-demand across any device and report on the pass/fail score but also on the effectiveness of the content.

We will talk more about this end to end e-learning solution for any device that we released over the summer at our coming e-Learning Summit.  To learn more or register, please visit:  http://bit.ly/MYEW9J

We’re tremendously excited to announce that our latest version of Adobe Connect Mobile, version 2.0, is now available for iOS and Android devices!

With the realities of today’s business environments where employees and customers are on the move worldwide, it’s not practical to expect that opportunities to collaborate or train only arise while in the office or at a desk. An effective web conferencing solution needs to provide users with the flexibility to not just participate in meetings, but to fully host, collaborate, and drive meetings from their mobile device.  It needs to enable trainers to not just provide learner access from any device, but also deliver that training from a mobile device.

With this in mind, we bring you Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0, offering meeting hosts and participants complete confidence to engage in web meetings, webinars, and virtual classrooms on the move using iOS or Android devices. We’ve extended many of the capabilities of previous releases with powerful new features, particularly on tablets. For example:

Complete meeting administration

In addition to existing hosting controls (begin/end meetings, manage attendance, manage attendee roles – Host, Presenter, or Participant, etc.), hosts can now fully control meeting recordings, audio conferencing, and video.

Share content from the cloud or device

Share presentations, videos, images and other content stored in your library in the cloud; in the image library; or on the device drive* itself (*Android).

Enhanced presentation controls and interactivity

In addition to existing presentation controls (presenting content, advancing slides, taking shared notes, running polls, etc.), hosts can now whiteboard with the tip of a finger, change layouts, and foster interaction with a range of emoticons.

Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0 is now available for free download on iTunes Preview here, and the Google Play Store here.

The app supports the following devices and operating systems:

Apple:

-               Devices: iPad, iPad2, iPad3; iPhone 4 and 4 S, iPod touch (3rd generation minimum recommended)

-               Supported OS versions: iOS 4.3.x, 5.x, or 6.x (5.x or higher recommended)

Android:

-               Devices: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1), Nexus 7, Samsung Galaxy Tab (10.1), ASUS Transformer, Samsung Galaxy Tab (7”) , Motorola Xoom, Motorola Xoom 2.

-               Supported OS versions:  2.2 and higher.

-               AIR Runtime required: 3.2 or higher

Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0 is not yet available for BlackBerry Playbook, but please stay tuned for updates.  Our 1.7.5 version continues to be available here in BlackBerry App World.

For more information on Adobe Connect Mobile visit our Adobe Connect Mobile User Forum on connectusers.com. We look forward to your thoughts—in comments, on Twitter @AdobeConnect, and on our mobile user forum.

Cheers and enjoy,

Randah McKinnie, Principal Product Manager

Guillaume Privat | Director, Adobe Connect

Today, I’m extremely pleased to announce the next major release of Adobe Connect, Adobe Connect 9.  It will change the way people’s perspective on web conferencing.

This new version of Adobe Connect brings with it features that will help our customers produce even better webinars and collaborate and train even more effectively using mobile devices.

Adobe Connect 9 also leverages industry-leading technologies from other parts of the company to help provide end to end solutions that spans business process that happens before the meeting and after the meeting.

We worked with the Adobe CQ team to build in capabilities that will enable our customers to create rich, branded event landing pages or entire micro-sites that can be used for event promotion and registration.

Adobe SiteCatalyst provides web analytics for some of the biggest brands and websites in the world. We’re leveraging that same engine in Adobe Connect 9 to help our customers measure the success of their webinars and marketing or outreach campaigns.

We’re even able to provide real-time feedback inside of a webinar or virtual classroom with a new pod called the Engagement Dashboard. This dashboard helps presenters and hosts track message effectiveness.

In addition to Adobe Connect 9, we’re also announcing the next version of Adobe Connect Mobile. Version 2 brings with it even more support for meeting hosts to manage the meeting, share documents, and annotate on whiteboards or content. It also increases support for virtual classrooms – incorporating breakout rooms, raise-hand functionality, and many sharing options. There is no longer the need for a traditional PC; Adobe Connect Mobile 2.0 enables device to device collaboration.

With Adobe Connect 9 and Adobe Mobile 2.0, we are powering the use of web conferencing in mission critical business processes across organizations.