Government Bits

Tracking how technology is transforming interaction between governments and citizens.

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Whether it’s for telework, town hall meetings, e-learning, telemedicine, continuity of operations, or mission critical collaboration, many civilian and military agencies rely on Adobe Connect.  To learn what’s to come in 2012 for this best-in-class solution, we had the opportunity to talk with Guillaume Privat, Director of our Adobe Connect business.

Q: 2011 saw several large government agencies adopt Adobe Connect or expand their deployment. What can you tell us about the plans for the solution in 2012?

A: In 2011, we rolled out Adobe Connect 8, which focused on ease of use and the ability for users to access their meetings, webinars or virtual classrooms on any smartphone or tablet.  2012 will the year of Adobe Connect 9.  We recently announced we were opening up the beta for Adobe Connect 9. We looked at how our customers are using the product and it’s clear that ‘screen sharing’ is not enough.  They are looking for solutions to their business problems.  How can they train faster and measure the effectiveness of that training?  How effective are their town hall meetings or citizen outreach campaigns?  Should they spend more or less money on these activities?  The focus for the future release is to create these end-to-end solutions that will help government organizations measure and report on productivity gains or cost savings.

Q: Are you going to continue your focus on mobile?

A: Yes, a key value proposition of Adobe Connect is its ease of access from virtually any device.  With Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 released last fall, we offered the ability not only to attend meetings from mobile devices, but also to host meetings, webinars or virtual classrooms on iOS devices, Android and Blackberry PlayBook.  Along with the Adobe Connect 9 beta, we also launched the beta of our mobile applications version 2.0, which will push the envelope even further.

Q: In November 2011, Adobe announced some major strategic decisions that will focus the business on opportunities in Digital Media and Digital Marketing.  How does this impact the Adobe Connect business?

A: As I communicated in my blog post in November, we’ll be providing even more focus with Adobe Connect on key vertical markets like Government.  Otherwise, the main changes to the business were with our commercial go-to market, which we’ve organized to be channel centric.  Our agility to innovate and to release new versions of the product remains.  What our customers can expect is to see more innovation, such as leveraging unique capabilities from our Digital Marketing Suite for reporting and analytics or Web Content Management.

Q: Can you tell me more about Adobe Connect’s focus on government?

A: Over the years we have built a unique ecosystem of resellers and solution partners that work alongside our direct sales and support team to ensure the success of each of our customers. This ecosystem enables government to have the flexibility to purchase an off-the shelf-product but customize it quickly to meet unique requirements they may have, like FISMA compliance.  As the product continues to evolve, we are paying close attention to some of the challenges government organizations face in order to secure the private information of citizens.  We offer each of our government customers the choice to host their solution in a public cloud, in a private cloud, or behind their own firewall.  This choice of deployment options is unique to Adobe Connect, and designed to balance the government agencies’ budget constraints with their security and confidentiality mandates.

How do you Connect? Let us know on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM, or on Facebook.

Adobe’s Acrobat and Creative Suite products are ubiquitous across the DoD and Intelligence Community. Over the last few years, we have amassed a compelling number of case studies in which agencies like the US Army Corps of Engineers and many others use Adobe’s desktop tools to conceive, prototype, create, publish, distribute, track, optimize and secure documents and content ranging from simple inter-office communications to detailed technical schematics to high-level classified documentation. Whether it’s high-resolution digital imaging, HD video processing, enterprise-class RIAs, mobile app development, or redacting and encrypting sensitive PDF documentation — the DoD depends on Adobe Desktop.

Because of the broad familiarity that our DoD customers have with our desktop software, Adobe has “taken its show on the road” with a 17-date roadshow called the Create and Secure Military Tour 2011!

These half-day briefings are designed to help keep our customers ahead and abreast of the emerging trends in PDF and document security, publication design, web development and video post-production with practical introductions to the latest innovations in Adobe technology.

Included in these briefings are demonstrations of Acrobat X Professional, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Encore, and other Adobe desktop tools. Hot topics so far have included: document encryption and security, forms data collection workflows, PDF Portfolios, creating apps for Android and iOS devices, HTML5 best practices, smoothly editing multiple streams of HD video in real-time, and much more.

Check here to see if we’re coming to a city or military installation near you soon!

Our recent conversation with Michael Murtha, Adobe Department of Defense Solutions Engineer, continues today with the second of a two-part series.

Today, Mike discusses:

• 0:05 – An overview of the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Defense Connect Online
• 1:30 – Breadth of offering with Adobe Connect
• 2:30 – What the future holds in his market area of focus

If you haven’t yet, check out the first part of the conversation here.

And if you’re reading and watching this, you might also be interested in our recent conversation with Barry Leffew, Adobe’s vice president of Public Sector Sales. You’ll find parts one and two here and here.

To keep up on the latest with Adobe in government, be sure to follow us on Twitter @AdobeGov.

We recently sat down with Michael Murtha, an Adobe Department of Defense Solutions Engineer, to get his perspective on his area of expertise in the public sector. Mike’s work includes supporting the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Defense Connect Online solution, which is based on Adobe Connect.

This is the first segment of a two-part interview. In today’s video, Mike discusses:

• 0:05 – His current role and background
• 0:28 – A typical day
• 1:03 – Key market trends in his area of focus
• 3:05 – The role and importance of customer experience

In part two, which we’ll post in the next couple days, Mike covers:

• An overview of Defense Connect Online
• The breadth of offering with Adobe Connect
• What the future holds in Mike’s market area of focus

Keep your eyes on this space for the second part of the conversation, or follow us on Twitter to be sure you catch it.

Recently, Rob Tarkoff, SVP of Digital Enterprise Solutions at Adobe, spoke at the Air Force Information Technology Conference.  We asked Rob to share his thoughts on the importance of experience driven design in the military.

Guest contribution from Philip Adzima

Hi – Philip Adzima here. I work as a technical account manager for Adobe, focused on providing product solutions to customers using Adobe Connect. Along with people from government and service agencies all over the world, I had the privilege of participating in my own small, but personally memorable, way to the humanitarian relief effort following the devastating earthquake that ravaged Haiti on January 12, 2010. This is a recap of my week on the ground in Miami supporting military and aid personnel using Defense Connect Online (DCO), which continue to be mission-critical communication tools for Operation Unified Response–the Haitian relief effort being led by the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). SOUTHCOM is part of the U.S. Department of Defense. Technology aside, it was amazing to witness firsthand the commitment and dedication of so many people working to help others in need.

The United States Department of Defense Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) has certified both Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader version 9.

Many programs supporting the Department of Defense missions require security services, such as authentication, confidentiality, non-repudiation, and access control. The JITC certification demonstrates compliance with DoD policy as well as showing confidence that the applications are properly and securely using Public Key Infrastructure.

Here are the direct links for certification of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader

Certification was also achieved for Acrobat and Reader version 7 and version 8.

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