Acrobat.com comes out of beta with paid-for services

 

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Posted on 15 Jun 2009 at 14:31

Adobe will take Acrobat.com, the company's online application suite, out of beta today and will add two new premium service plans that will unlock some of the suite's features.

During the beta phase, Acrobat.com was completely free to use and while the free account remains, there will be certain usage restrictions in place - these can be unlocked by paying for one of two account upgrades.

The 'premium basic' plan, which costs $14.99 a month or $149 per year, will allow ten PDF conversions a month as well as up to five meeting participants through the company's ConnectNow tool. The 'premium plus' upgrade, by contrast, will allow unlimited PDF conversions and up to 20 meeting participants. This account will be priced at $39 a month or $390 per year.

Those who choose to stick with the standard free account will be limited to five PDF conversions per month and connect concurrently with only two people using ConnectNow, which is just one less than what was offered during the beta period.

In addition to this move, Acrobat.com will get a new collaborative app known as Tables, which handles basic spreadsheets and, just like Buzzword, the company's online word processor, it will enable multiple users to work on a spreadsheet together while being able to track changes and roll back to earlier versions.

Eric Larson, Adobe's Director of Product Management and Marketing for Acrobat.com, said that while Tables is not ready to replace Microsoft Excel yet, that is Adobe's plan in the long run. He spoke last week with CNET and was keen to point out that there are things that Tables can do that Excel can't, such as seeing where other people are on the document and providing warnings when a visual change will affect other users of the document.

Adobe said that it is also working to get its AIR application functionally on a par with Acrobat.com so that these services can move beyond the browser and onto the desktop. The company hopes that this will also enable users to access and edit their documents on a range of mobile devices , but this functionality isn't expected until later this year.

Author: Tim Smalley