Today, we are excited to reveal another major milestone in the integration of Adobe EchoSign technology with Adobe’s document solutions and services. Now, Adobe Reader users will be able to send PDF files to be signed from within the application as well as sign documents electronically themselves, making it easier than ever for businesses to “seal the deal” and keep up with the demands of a growing mobile workforce.  The new update makes Adobe Reader a one-stop shop for electronic signatures. Read more about it on the Acrobat Solutions blog.

We’re excited today to announce the immediate availability of the free Adobe EchoSign application for iOS devices.  We realize that you are doing more and more business over your mobile devices and tablets and we’re committed to helping you streamline your business processes and increase productivity.  Now, you can easily get access to you EchoSign accounts and sign documents directly from your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices.

For more details on the Adobe EchoSign app, check out the Acrobat Solutions blog or the view the press release.   And be sure to download the app now at the iTunes Stores. After all, it’s free. Happy Holidays!

We’re excited to announce that today we’ve updated Adobe FormsCentral with some of our customers’ most-asked-for features. Now, you no longer have to deal with the headaches of getting files and information from customers, clients, or vendors.  With the new File Attachments Field in FormsCentral, users can now collect and store one or more files (including audio and video) from respondents, making things like requests for proposals and resumes, easier to gather and manage. Everything is stored in one central place, taking the pain out of managing the collection process. In addition, the new Field Validation features let users set minimum and maximum values for the number of characters, dates or multiple choice fields within their forms – making life simpler for everyone involved. Check out the Acrobat Solutions blog to learn more about how today’s updates make it easier than ever to collect and organize data in such uses as applications, client intake, and registration forms.

We are excited to announce that today, Adobe Reader for iOS is available free on the Apple App Store. This new PDF reader makes it easier than ever to use your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to view and interact with the widest range of PDF file types – including PDF Portfolios, password-protected PDF documents and Adobe LiveCycle rights-managed PDF files.

Adobe Reader for iOS lets you open and view PDF files from email, the Web or from any application that supports the “Open In” function, allowing for quick navigation through PDF files by searching for specific text or using bookmarks and page thumbnails.  For a full list of included features, please visit the Adobe Acrobat blog, or click here for a video overview.

When we announced our acquisition of Web-based electronic signature leader EchoSign in July, it was just the first step in what we said would be a relationship that would bring more and more powerful and productive document services to our customers. Today, we’re introducing EchoSign for Adobe Reader.

The beauty of the EchoSign signature service is that there’s nothing to download and install and with just one click, the entire signature process from the request for signature to the distribution and execution of the form or agreement is done. Now that you can get access to the service via the seemingly omnipresent Adobe Reader, it’s even simpler. For more on today’s news, see the full Acrobat Solutions blog post from Mangesh Bhandarkar, group product manager, EchoSign, here.

Welcome to our new Adobe eSign Success series, where we are highlighting some of the great work our EchoSign customers do on a daily basis. Helping our customers make it easier to do business online is the cornerstone of the Adobe EchoSign e-signature solution, so we are excited to feature some of our customer success stories.

If you were to ask almost any person on the street to name the most successful social Web businesses of the last few years, the answers would likely center on a handful of companies. Groupon. Facebook. Pandora. All three have grown faster in a matter of years than most businesses grow in decades, and all three have defined the social nature of the Web and, as a result, have built it into their business models. At the Salesforce Dreamforce conference on August 31, all three will discuss how the social contract fuels their success.

Groupon, Facebook and Pandora are among the thousands of businesses using Adobe EchoSign’s e-signature solution to automate contracting processes in the cloud and in person. Today, the social contract is immediate, regardless of whether customers sign from their laptops, mobile devices or on a tablet screen proffered by an in-person sales rep. Adding this social aspect to the age-old process of signing contracts is changing the way sales teams and mobile warriors interact with their customers. Instead of handing over a piece of paper, they are giving customers a tablet or smartphone to sign. For instance, instead of paper contracts, Pandora uses e-signatures to close contracts with its vendors.
The multi-billion dollar social Web companies joining us for a panel at Dreamforce in San Francisco recognized the social, collaborative nature of the Web and capitalized on it quickly. That is apparent in their services, as well as in their business processes. If you want to know how:

• To get sales reps. off the road and selling more;
• To turn contracts into collaborative documents;
• To apply the principles of the social Web to your business processes;
• To compress and accelerate growth;
• To automate the entire contract process, from creation to signature, to management and tracking; and
• To learn what the social enterprise is all about,

Then check out our dream panel later this month at Dreamforce.

Every day, thousands of overnight envelopes criss-cross the globe, many containing critical business documents that require someone’s signature. Adobe’s document solutions have historically helped organizations turn inefficient, paper-based workflows – like overnight envelopes – into streamlined electronic ones.  Today, we’re adding a key component to our document exchange services platform that addresses the need to provide better customer experiences by significantly reducing the time, cost, and complexity associated with getting a document signed.

Adobe announced today that we have acquired EchoSign, the leading Web-based provider of electronic signatures and signature automation. EchoSign’s pioneering electronic signature solution will be a key component of Adobe’s document exchange services platform for reliably exchanging documents for universal access, review and approval. It will be integrated with Adobe’s other document services including SendNow for managed file transfer, FormsCentral for form creation and CreatePDF for online PDF creation, enabling customers to significantly accelerate sales cycles, improve tracking and centralize the management of signed agreements through a simple to use cloud service.

With just one click, the EchoSign electronic signature solution automates the entire signature process from the request for signature to the distribution and execution of the form or agreement. The EchoSign solution provides a secure subscription-based service to individuals, SMBs and enterprise customers, enabling real-time visibility into the signature process and automatically storing and managing all signed documents. What’s more, there’s nothing to download or install.

 The EchoSign service includes a rich set of APIs for incorporation with company-specific solutions to improve the process of sending, tracking and signing documents online. The EchoSign service integrates with partner solutions, such as Salesforce.com and NetSuite.

 We think that bringing together EchoSign’s ease of use with Adobe’s brand, reach, and trust in the document space makes for a perfect match. Our aim is to make electronic signatures the common way for people to sign documents.

Kevin M. Lynch is vice president and general manager of Acrobat Solutions, Digital Enterprise Solutions, Adobe

We love talking to our Acrobat customers. With every customer we learn something new and useful to pass on to others. Take McGladrey, for instance.

McGladrey, the brand under which RSM McGladrey and McGladrey & Pullen operate, ranks as the fifth largest professional services firm in the U.S. McGladrey’s 7,000 professionals in nearly 80 cities collaborate with clients daily to meet their tax, auditing and business consulting needs. Recently we learned about how McGladrey is using a new Adobe program to save hundreds of thousands of dollars through their desktop manager, Matt Corcoran.

Check out this week’s Acrobat blog post on McGladrey from Mark Grilli, director of product marketing, to learn more about how the company has standardized on PDF to support paperless workflows and to automate processes. Using PDF increases efficiency and productivity, provides secure collaboration with clients and streamlines document management and processes, such as e-filing with the IRS. Read the full post here.

Top 10 Ways to Celebrate the birth of a technology that helped change the world

On June 15, Adobe Acrobat and PDF celebrate their 18^thbirthdays.  Turning 18 is pretty significant. There are lots of things you can do at 18 that you couldn’t before. Like all the great new features and capabilities Acrobat has acquired over the years. But that’s for another blog.

Today, we want to celebrate. It would be nice to take Acrobat and PDF out for an evening on the town, for instance, but that’s not likely, of course. Instead, we’ve come up with a few ways you can celebrate this important milestone on your own, or with colleagues and friends, perhaps. All in good fun, naturally.

From PDF scavenger hunts to a PDF-a-Palooza, check out today’s Acrobat blog for some inspiration on how to celebrate Acrobat and PDF in a post from Stephanie Baartz-Bowman, principal product marketing manager, Acrobat.

What has PDF meant to you through the years? Feel free to post a birthday card on our Acrobat Facebook wall with your favorite feature or use of PDF. We look forward to celebrating with you!

Check out this video of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen featured during a keynote at SAPPHIRE NOW, SAP’s global business technology conference. Shantanu discusses how the integration of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 with SAP NetWeaver Gateway is optimizing business processes across the Web and mobile platforms (see the news), plus how Adobe’s work with SAP’s HANA initiative is helping stop software piracy.