Posts in Category "Uncategorized"

January 13, 2009

Tuesday 13th Jan – Awards Day

It’s been a while – so Happy New year to you all!!

It’s been an award-winning day for Adobe as we picked up three honors from SYS-CON, Intelligent Enterprise and InfoWorld. Read on for more details…

SYS-CON
SYS-CON today announced the winners of the AJAXWorld Show Awards. Attendees at the 2008 International AJAXWorld Conference & Expo casted their votes for their favorite AJAX, RIA and Open Source technology provider in five highly competitive categories and Adobe came out on top. Adobe Flash Platform was named “Best Rich Internet Platform”; Flex Builder 3 was named “Best SDK Winner”; and Adobe Flex was named “Best Open Source RIA Solution.”

You can view the winners here

INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE
Intelligent Enterprise today revealed Adobe as one of ‘The Dozen’ most influential vendors in enterprise IT for 2009. This was announced as part of the 10th Annual Intelligent Enterprise 2009 Editors’ Choice Awards. The write up is a great recognition of Adobe’s cross-product influence in the enterprise.

For the full article, please click here

INFOWORLD
InfoWorld today announced its 2009 Technology of the Year Awards, recognizing Flash, Flex, and AIR in application development.

The article can be found here

11:40 PM Permalink

Tuesday 13th Jan – Awards Day

It’s been a while – so Happy New year to you all!!

It’s been an award-winning day for Adobe as we picked up three honors from SYS-CON, Intelligent Enterprise and InfoWorld. Read on for more details…

SYS-CON
SYS-CON today announced the winners of the AJAXWorld Show Awards. Attendees at the 2008 International AJAXWorld Conference & Expo casted their votes for their favorite AJAX, RIA and Open Source technology provider in five highly competitive categories and Adobe came out on top. Adobe Flash Platform was named “Best Rich Internet Platform”; Flex Builder 3 was named “Best SDK Winner”; and Adobe Flex was named “Best Open Source RIA Solution.”

You can view the winners here

INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE
Intelligent Enterprise today revealed Adobe as one of ‘The Dozen’ most influential vendors in enterprise IT for 2009. This was announced as part of the 10th Annual Intelligent Enterprise 2009 Editors’ Choice Awards. The write up is a great recognition of Adobe’s cross-product influence in the enterprise.

For the full article, please click here

INFOWORLD
InfoWorld today announced its 2009 Technology of the Year Awards, recognizing Flash, Flex, and AIR in application development.

The article can be found here

11:37 PM Permalink
November 13, 2007

It’s been a while!

I’ve had a bit of a hiatus from the old blog over the last few month – not for lack of news, more through lack of time!  Anyway, I’ll be pouring a bit more into ARena over the next few days – news from the Adobe MAX events, customer wins and other news from the last couple of months.

Before we get into that, I wanted to share the most recent news from Adobe that the company has named Shantanu Narayen as President and Chief Executive Officer, with Bruce Chizen stepping down from this role. Bruce will serve the remainder of his term on Adobe’s Board of Directors through the Spring of 2008 and continue in a strategic advisory capacity through the end of fiscal year 2008.

From the press release: "“Bruce Chizen’s vision has helped transform Adobe from a company that was known mainly for its popular design products into one of the largest and most diversified software companies in the world,” said Chuck Geschke and John Warnock, Adobe’s chairmen of the Board of Directors. “We thank him for his outstanding leadership and contributions to Adobe’s success during his entire 14 years at Adobe and the past seven as CEO.”

For more info, you can read the press release here.

Good luck to Bruce and Shantanu.

9:31 AM Permalink
August 2, 2007

Customer Round-up #0707

In light of the launch of ColdFusion 8 earlier this week, I thought I’d provide a round-up ColdFusion customers. Apparently,
more than 300,000 developers at over 10,000 companies worldwide rely on ColdFusion. With more than 125,000 ColdFusion servers deployed, makes ColdFusion on of the most widely adopted web technologies in the industry.

Arizona State University -
With so many things to do and see in today’s 24×7 world, grabbing students’ attention and keeping it can be a formidable challenge. At Arizona State University (ASU), more than 500 graduate students around the world enrolled in Online MBA and Executive Education programs in the W. P. Carey School of Business enjoy appealing, interactive, online course work developed and delivered using a full complement of Adobe software, including ColdFusion. 
ASU is using the rich application services of ColdFusion to deliver content housed on ASU’s server to students, as well as tapping ColdFusion components for building functions for different student interfaces and platforms. “ColdFusion enables us to leverage existing development resources to publish anywhere—a vital capability in reliably reaching 500 far-flung students. With ColdFusion, students can load content far faster than if we were delivering flat XML files,” says
Michael Ritchie. “And we can combine ColdFusion with Flash to have a more fluid interface and a simple, elegant cross-platform solution.”

Children’s Hospital Boston – Children’s Hospital Boston is the nation’s leading pediatric medical center and the primary pediatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. In addition to its 347 inpatient beds and comprehensive outpatient programs, Children’s Hospital houses the world’s largest research enterprise at a pediatric medical center. All hospital workers require ongoing training to ensure compliance with requirements from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and professional accrediting agencies. This is no small undertaking at Children’s Hospital, where nearly 3,000 doctors and nurses work alongside 4,600 employees and approximately 1,000 volunteers.
The IT staff at Children’s Hospital Boston uses ColdFusion to integrate front-end processes with critical back-end systems. Children’s Hospital also uses a range of other Adobe software including Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro, Acrobat and Acrobat Connect.

Here are a few other companies using ColdFusion in creative and innovative ways:

192.comCase study

Aspen Skiing CompanyCase study

County of San Diego, Department of Child Support ServicesCase study

CrayolaCase study

eBagsCase study – this site also use Scene7 (an Adobe company)technology to render the images.

FAO SchwarzCase study

International Speedway CorporationCase study

MySwitzerland.comCase study

Simon & SchusterCase study

10:54 PM Permalink

ColdFusion 8

Quick entry to give an update on some recent announcements from Adobe.

Adobe Ships ColdFusion 8 – Press release can be found here. For those who aren’t familiar with ColdFusion, it’s "a powerful development tool for building dynamic Web sites and Internet applications, increases developer productivity, integrates with complex enterprise environments, and delivers rich and engaging experiences for users". Cool!

The public beta of ColdFusion 8 has been running since May 2007, with more than 14,000 developers participating, praising the new capabilities and providing Adobe with invaluable feedback.

8:31 PM Permalink
July 2, 2007

Customer Round-up #0706

Another monthly installment of great Adobe customers. As I am currently working in the US, I thought I’d focus on Adobe Acrobat Connect customers. Enjoy!

Cranfield University School of
Management
-Cranfield University’s School of Management offers high-tech, customised executive development through its Centre for Customised Executive Development (CCED). To offer customers a flexible, easily adaptable solution for eLearning, CCED adopted Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, allowing Cranfield to develop and deliver courses in flexible ways, saving time and money for both Cranfield and its executive students.

Florida Center for Instructional
Technology
– How do rural schools and teachers keep up with more urban, possibly better funded, schools? In Florida, as public schools stretch training budgets to integrate technology into classrooms, the Florida Center for Instructional Technology (FCIT) has been working with educators to integrate technology into their curricula, and utilising a combination of face-to-face meetings and Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional to train teachers and educators throughout Florida. Once certified as a "Master Digital Educator (MDE)" these trained teachers use Acrobat Connect Professional to train other educators on how best to provide the technology skills necessary to launch Florida’s students into the digital age.

Mensheds Australia Ltd -Mensheds is a unique not-for-profit organisation specialising in the health and well-being of men. Mensheds Australia was established to quickly and efficiently assist in starting, running, and growing individual men’s "sheds" across Australia.
Each men’s shed is an individual local organisation that offers opportunities for regular learning new skills—especially about health, well-being, and helping the community.
Individual men’s sheds are geographically scattered across Australia, and are managed by local governments, community groups, and motivated individuals.
Mensheds Australia needed to provide quick and easy access to products, services, and information while retaining the support of the health industry and communities.
Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional allows Mensheds Australia to use multimedia to deliver support to even the most remote communities. Members of men’s sheds can use their PCs to connect via the Internet to their local groups and individual members without being overwhelmed by the technology.

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) -
the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), an operating unit of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), plans to adopt Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional software to enable deployed troops, support personnel, and military leaders to collaborate more efficiently across locations worldwide. This is a recent announcement – see the press release here – highlighting how the US Department of Defense is implementing Adobe Connect in "hostile" environments. From the press release: “Acrobat Connect Professional will help simplify collaboration in the DoD’s complex, diverse environments. In many operations, the real-time engagement enabled by Acrobat Connect may literally help save lives, as soldiers and military leaders share intelligence and plan strategies in response to changing conditions.”

11:52 PM Permalink
June 11, 2007

A Breath of Fresh AIR

Today, Adobe announced that the public beta of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), formerly code-named Apollo, and the public beta of Adobe Flex 3 are immediately available for download from Adobe Labs. The Adobe Integrated Runtime, along with Flex, are cornerstones of Adobe’s comprehensive RIA strategy for enabling developers and designers to create and deliver rich, dynamic, branded content and applications across all major operating systems.

You can read the press releases here (Adobe Integrated Runtime) and here (Flex 3)

The Adobe Integrated Runtime allows developers to use HTML/CSS, any Ajax framework, Flash and Flex to extend RIAs to the desktop. New features in the Adobe Integrated Runtime beta include an embedded local database (SQLlite), PDF support, enhanced capabilities for JavaScript developers, and deeper integration with Adobe Flex. The free beta versions of Adobe AIR and the Adobe AIR SDK are available for downloaded from www.adobe.com/go/air.  You can also get a preview of some of the early applications being developed on the Adobe Integrated Runtime from Adobe Labs.

The Flex 3 beta is a major functional release that adds rich new UI capabilities, enhanced developer productivity, desktop deployment and enterprise testing and performance tools.  The Flex 3 public beta also marks the first significant deliverable for the open source Flex project, beginning with the availability of nightly builds, and a public bug database, which will be posted at www.labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/opensource. The free Flex SDK also makes it easy for Flex and Flash developers to get started with Adobe AIR. Additionally, web developers can use the Eclipse-based Flex Builder, an advanced IDE for creating both desktop and browser-based RIA’s.

Ryan posts here with some deeper analysis.

11:29 AM Permalink

Customer Round-up #0705

To mark the announcement of Adobe’s newest version of LiveCycle – LiveCycle Enterprise Suite – I thought I would focus this month on customers implementing LiveCycle solutions.

Business Loan Express (BLX) – BLX specializes in long-term loans for commercial purposes, including small businesses looking to acquire or refinance real estate, as well as to finance their operations with financing needs in the range of $25,000 to $5,000,000. Almost 85% of BLX business comes from referral and repeat clients, so there is tremendous loyalty if customers are treated well. BLX use Adobe LiveCycle solutions to automate processes and better engage with customers to provide more responsive, personalized services. By implementing a LiveCycle based solution, BLX has seen accelerate loan processing; improve margins on loan; expanded it customer base; and strengthen relationships with brokers and borrowers.

Cedacri -
Based in Parma, Italy, Cedacri is a leading IT provider for financial institutions. With a turnover of €150 million in 2005, 550 employees, and a clientele of more than 60 banks, Cedacri is a market leader in IT services in Italy. One of Cedacri’s services is designing, customizing, and managing forms as well as the ultimate printing of bank statements. Cedacri wanted to move to a solution that easily generated visually appealing bank contracts, statements, and other forms for its clients. By implementing a LiveCycle based solution, Cedacri was able to eliminate formatting errors; improve design and customization of forms; generate dynamic documents; and eliminate distribution costs and time.

Penn State University -
Penn State serves more than 80,000 students at its main and satellite campuses, awarding over 16,000 degrees annually. As a large university, Penn State received more than 120,000 requests for transcripts and documentation from existing and past students. Historically, requests come in by mail, by fax, or through a web portal submission system, with approximately 25% of the requests being urgent.
One issue of critical concern to Penn State officials was the proliferation of fake diplomas and falsified transcripts—annual sales of which total more than $100 million worldwide!! Penn State implemented a LiveCycle based solution, using
Adobe
Certified Document Services
with Adobe LiveCycle Document Security software and digital IDs from GeoTrust to provide the requisite capabilities. The solution has lead to multiple benefits, including accelerated production and delivery of transcripts by more than 99%; reallocated administrative time to other student services; improved integrity and authenticity of transcripts. In addition, Penn State anticipated full ROI within one year of deployment.

US Green Building Council -watch the video

Snap-on Credit -Personally, the extent of automobile maintenance I do runs to putting petrol (gas) in the fuel tank, so I’ve never really had a need for an arsenal of tool. However if you are a
professional automotive or aircraft technician then the Snap-on brand is synonymous with quality. The financial services arm of Snap-on Inc – Snap-on Credit – works with the company’s US network of 3,500 franchisees to provide customers with financing solutions. Traditionally, franchisees input data into a stand-alone system, printed and signed the resulting forms by hand. The paper contracts were then submitted to a franchisee’s regional office, then forwards to Snap-on Credit’s main office for processing. Snap-on Credit implemented a LiveCycle based solution that allows
franchisees simply enter information into a software application on their computers and export the detail in XML into an Adobe PDF form. Electronic signatures are applied, the form validated and sent electronically to the main processing office. The benefits to Snap-on and the franchisees include: accelerating processing from several days to minutes; reducing errors from 15% to less than 2%; and improving access to special pricing promotions.

11:28 AM Permalink

LiveCycle Enterprise Suite

Ok, maybe not the most inspiring title for a blog entry – sorry about that – but Adobe announced last Monday the next version of our LiveCycle product – LiveCycle Enterprise Suite.

You can read the announcement here.

According to the press release: "LiveCycle ES integrates the capabilities of Adobe Flex and PDF technologies, while leveraging the reach of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Reader to enable a new class of “customer engagement” applications that easily connect people inside and outside organizations to internal information and processes."

I’ve seen a number of demos of LiveCycle Enterprise Suite and it is pretty cool – showing how you can take a plan/static PDF form off the web and turn it into a fully functional, intelligent, rich web "data collection" application by using Acrobat, LiveCycle Designer and LiveCycle Workbench ES is pretty amazing.

11:27 AM Permalink
June 1, 2007

Adobe and Google

There have been a couple of announcements over the last few days from Adobe and Google – one announcement from Adobe (with Google included) and one announcement from google (with Adobe included).

First up was the Adobe announcement about a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop Extended that allows designers to "take further advantage of the software’s powerful compositing, painting and image-editing toolset for editing 3D content." You can read the press release here, and download the plug-in here.

Next up is the Google announcement about Google Gears. The press release can be found here.

There has been some discussion over the last few days as to whether Google Gears is a competitor to the Adobe Apollo project. As Kevin says:
"We’re very excited to be collaborating with Google to move the industry forward to a standard cross-platform, cross-browser local storage capability. The Gears API will also be available in Apollo, which enables web applications to run on the desktop, providing developers with consistent offline and local database solutions.”

Ryan Stewart provides a very clear overview of how the Google and Adobe technologies complement each other on his ZDNet blog, here.

3:46 PM Permalink