James and I had an interesting briefing this morning with Adobe. We covered the upcoming releases of Acrobat, Acrobat Reader, and Breeze.
RIA All Over the Place
As I was telling James, the vision and collaborative platform that Adobe (and their recently acquired friends, Macromedia) are building out is what software would look like if the web had never happened: desktop driven front-ends with servers and data sent around by email. This contrasts with the web world where the interface are functionality-thin clients (web browsers) and all the data and services are hosted "in the cloud."
The Adobe platform that we saw today was a mix of Acrobat, PDF forms, a central server (called a "shared review server"), and Breeze. In summary, it was very, very cool. So much so that both James and I had to catch ourselves from drooling all over it and ask some more critical questions ;>
Open Silos
One of those concerns, of course, is how open the platform will be. The fact that the web -- as we know it, at least -- wasn't involved points towards a silo. But, until I get a chance to look at the technical side of things, I can't really say that for sure; I should be getting some more in-depth docs from Adobe , or just digging some up on my own.
Pulling back to the industry, the interesting trend that I'm seeing is another go at creating the information collaboration platform: IBM's mashup server announcement, vague as it is at the moment, Microsoft's SharePoint as MDM that dawned on me at TechEd, and general Web 2.0 idea of getting all your data open and mashed up. Adobe's go is, of course, of the rich internet application model: using the 'net for networking, but not interfaces.
Meta-data Fortified Data
At the root of this is an architectural point that Israel Gat pointed out to me sometime ago (along with the ATOM protocol fan-boys like Bosworth and Koranteng): people are paying more and more attention to how meta-data can be used to enhance the information worker's life. This implies that you're collecting meta-data at every chance possible.
The key, and why RedMonk cares about getting systems/platforms as open as possible, is that the more ways and services/software that use that meta-data, the more value the meta-data has to the user. Translating that into cash is simple: anything that takes part in the life-cycle of meta-data has value and will be paid for, either directly or indirectly. Of course, of even more value is being involved in the life-cycle of the data itself. In Adobe's case, that's usually documents.
As Macormedia and Adobe merge more and more, Adobe's idea of data will (or should) become more than just documents. It's one of those "Skype bought eBay" Gillmor lines of thought ;> Along those lines, it'd be good to see more thought-leadership along the lines of data management, not just document management, coming out of Adobe. Perhaps that is the case, and I'm just not looking in the right places: mia culpa if that's the case...but please send links.
Adobe gave a very information rich briefing, so gold-star for that ;> Which means that this briefing calls for more detail...but I need to get more clarification on the NDA/embargoness of the content. I'm always forgetting to ask that when I'm on the line with companies.
Breezey
As a side note: everyone out there needs to get Breeze instead of WebEx, GoToMeeting, or whatever else. I have no idea what the cost comparisons are, but it's frickin' sweet. It just works, whether on Mac, Windows, or whatever. It's all done in Flash, which "works everywhere," so it does what those other meeting apps don't do: works all the time.
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