Group items tagged

"Work better together on Acrobat.com" [1]. "Adobe has introduced Acrobat.com Workspaces, an extension to its online collaboration service that provides shared workspaces to enable teams to easily share project documents and other files when working on projects" [2]. Adobe is a major player in the field of producing solid software and it seems they too are joining the world of online collaboration by developing Acrobat.com Workspaces and more. Launched in 2009, Acrobat.com lets users "store and share documents, convert files to PDF, share their screen using Adobe ConnectNow, and create documents using online applications such as the Buzzword word processor and Acrobat.com Tables for spreadsheets"[2]. At the moment the paid prescription is available to North American customers only and some other regional Beta versions are available. Although this availability is a weakness, particularly at this stage for Australian clients, Adobe does offer a free alternative for everyone until the Workspaces are available widely. The alternative is a limited, but useful service; "Get an online workspace, five PDF conversions total, three person web conferencing, online office applications and forum-based support" [3]. One of the biggest strength's to the workspaces is the usability of the product and its fresh outlook. The product offers great potential for clients as regardless of what application you use to create a document; Acrobat.com Workspaces includes a PDF conversion which can make the final document industry standard.

References/Notes [1] Adobe - tagline, https://acrobat.com/#l [accessed April 5]. [2] Robinson, D., (2010). Adobe adds shared workspaces to Acrobat.com, http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2260392/adobe-adds-shared-workspaces, V3.co.uk. [3] Acrobat.com Workspaces, https://acrobat.com/#il=1&page=signup_only&su=1 [accessed April 5]. [4] Acrobat.com Mobile Workspaces, https://acrobat.com/features_mobile_access.html [accessed April 5]. [5] Adobe.com Workspace features, https://acrobat.com/features_online_office_applications.html [accessed April 5].

Placeholder interested in this for my work, so I'll comment after further research

Combining a couple of online tools; (Shared workspaces, and Connect Pro) for document collaboration, web conferencing, and eLearning. The days of emailing versions of Word or Power Point documents are gone. Sharing, collaborating, creating, is a 24/7 business and participation is potentially unlimited. The starting point for all groups is, choosing a common platform to work on. Most collaboration sites can be customized, has communication options, provide degrees of third-party partnerships, accommodate file sharing and facilitate storage space. [3] Acrobat.com has the lot and a lot more. Acrobat, as stand-alone software for PDF document creation, with its free distribution of the Acrobat Reader to open these documents, is known across multiple time zones. This is not always the case for other collaboration software. Statistics for users of Facebook show the platform is mostly used in the United States and Canada while orkut (www.orkut.com) is the platform preferred by Brazilians, and hi5 (www.hi5.com) is mostly used in the Caribbean.[3] Acrobat.com rebuts diversity by its international acceptance in the market. Acrobat.com Workspaces and Connect Pro is "The next best thing to meeting in person".

**. Workspaces: Online document collaboration, word processing, PDF conversion, spreadsheets sharing. **. Web conferencing: Private team meetings without the travelling cost. IPhone and iPod touch mobile software also available. This service can be hosted with an annual subscription, on-premise with a software licence or managed by a third-party certified Adobe partner. **. eLearning: Create self-paced courses and media-rich virtual classes. Delivery methods for business training are evolving. Economic fluctuations periodically shift sales strategies for example, a consultative approach to selling changes to a more provocative method in recessionary times. Sales managers often have to retrain staff with little warning. The new generation of the workforce; so called Millennials, tend to be more comfortable with online learning. On-line eLearning in real time is engaging, dynamic and interactive, all promoting highly effective sales training. [5] **. Web seminars: Host live web events and training for staff and customers and partners. With a web browser and Adobe Flash Player, create streaming video, animations and interactive content.[4]

[1] Hanyaloglu, A. (2010) Acrobat.com takes a new step today- Workspaces http://blogs.adobe.com/acom/ [2] http://www.adobe.com/acom/ [3] Hastings, R. (2008) Collaborating across time zones. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.slv.vic.gov.au/ehost/ [4] Product specifications. Retrieved on 5/4/2010 from: http://www.adobe.com/ap/products/acrobatconnectpro/?promoid=BOZMY [5] Canaday, H. How new eLearning tools cut costs and improve results. White paper . Retrieved on 5/4/2010 from http://www.adobe.com/ap/products/acrobatconnectpro/elearning/ Lowensohn, J. 2009. Retrieved on 7/04/2010 from: http://news.cnet.com

Transform how your team works, be it the educational sector (teachers and students) or the commercial sector (project teams) by using Adobe's Acrobat Buzzword service. Buzzword is a simple yet powerful multi-user document editing service designed to streamline review processes for simultaneous collaborative report writing. Buzzword, may look and behave like a word processor, but it is a web-based server that runs in Flash giving a high-quality graphical and design interface, full document formatting and 'print-perfect' documents in Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, Rich Text and Open Office [1] and across computing platforms. You can create your document within Buzzword or import an existing one. Eliminate the endless back-and-forward and usually large email responses and attachments and keep control of annotations and versions. Control your document access by making certain people 'co-authors' who can edit and other team members 'reviewers' who can only comment. Each reviewer uses a different colour making it easier to keep tabs on who is annotating and there is a feature that enables you to view who is online and editing a particular document. [1] [2] Enterprise, government and educational sectors have found Buzzword to be an integral part of their collaboration process and claim that since adopting the service, they have 'reduced duplicate input and shortened the time it takes to finalise a document from several days to just hours'. [3] For Acrobat.com subscription pricing, please refer to: https://acrobat.com/pricing.html [1] Adobe Buzzword. Retrieved from URL: http://www.adobe.com/acom/buzzword [2] Miller, M. (2009). 'Comparing Google Docs with Competing Cloud Computing Applications'. Retrieved from URL: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p

An outstanding feature of Adobe Buzzword is that it offers a free subscription service for smaller users, through to premium services for larger corporations. For a small business the free subscription would be ideal. As a result Adobe Buzzword can be adapted and used by corporations of any size as well as educational institutes. Some reviews of Adobe Buzzword have been very positive with Michael Klurfield of TECHGEIST saying "Buzzword is easily the best word processing software online right now." He explained that Buzzword does such things as annotations and comments are a lot easier in Buzzword than in Microsoft Word and that the sharing off documents is easy. PC MAG.COM compares uploading of Microsoft Word documents to Buzzword to both Google Docs and Zoho Writer and found that although there were some layout problems it was superior when uploading images. A paper from the 25th Annual Conference on distance Teaching and Learning identified Adobe Buzzword as "we find Adobe's Buzzword to be the best tool for the development of the course" (Staley and Ice, 2009) One of the problems Buzzword overcame for them was the necessity of having to email large documents back and forth and worry about version control. Adobe Buzzword it also incorporates the placement of images into your document and automatically flows the text around them. Its tools allow resizing of images. As with most word processors Buzzword can create bulleted lists and incorporate symbols and numbers. (http://www.adobe.com/acom/buzzword/) Sobti, (2009) states that "Buzzword differs from most other online document editors in that it is built on Adobe Flash, and which this makes the environment that much more rich" Adobe also has extensive help and demonstration sections for a new user for ease of learning.

References: Adobe - Acrobat.com Documents. (n.d.). Adobe. Retrieved April 14, 2010, from http://www.adobe.com/acom/buzzword/ Klurfield, M. (2009, June 16). Adobe Buzzword " Very Cool Online Wordprocessing | Techgeist. Techgeist. Retrieved April 14, 2010, from http://techgeist.net/2009/06/adobe-buzzword-very-cool-online-wordprocessing/ Mendelson, E. (2008, August 4). Adobe Buzzword beta - Compatibility with Microsoft Word - Reviews by PC Magazine. Technology Product Reviews, News, Prices & Downloads | PCMag.com | PC Magazine . Retrieved April 14, 2010, from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2327019,00.asp Sobti, K. (2009, July 24). The ODE Adobe Acrobat Buzzword - Online Best Latest The ODE Adobe Acrobat Buzzword Price Reviews | Features in India. Digit - Thinkdigit Technology Guides | Technology News & Reviews | Free Downloads | Video | Online Tech Support Forums in India. Retrieved April 14, 2010, from http://www.thinkdigit.com/General/The-ODE-Adobe-Acrobat-Buzzword_3231.html Stanley, J., & Ice, P. (2009). Intructional Design Project Managment 2.0: A Model of Development and Practive. 25th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning, .(2009), .. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/09_19400.pdf