Acrobat 8: ‘Critical upgrade,’ says Gartner
There’s always the dilemma — greater for some than others, and typically more complicated according to the size of an organization and its range of deployment — on when and/or whether to upgrade when a major upgrade to a software program begins shipping. Such is the case again for Acrobat customers, with the recently announced new version expected to become available in November, according to Adobe.
You can already preorder Acrobat 8 from the Adobe Store — free shipping if ordered by October 31 — and from various other online software depots. With its September 18 product announcement, Adobe began to describe some of the key new and updated features, even listing the proverbial 10 reasons users will want to buy Acrobat 8. OK, is anyone surprised Adobe is encouraging sales by suggesting this is a significant new version?
It’d be more than self-serving promotion if an independent business and technology operation like Gartner, Inc., with hundreds of respected analysts and consultants, listed the benefits of upgrading. Almost on cue, Gartner Research weighed in Monday with an analysis titled “Adobe Boosts Market Position With Acrobat 8 Capabilities.” [PDF: 111kb]
In a glowingly positive analysis of Acrobat 8 and Acrobat Connect, the three-page Gartner document is high on — among other things — the latest, long-requested Reader-enablement capabilities:
“Adobe has also augmented its traditional desktop focus with an increasingly robust server architecture that includes some content management capabilities, transformation engines, streaming servers and collaboration hubs. In addition, the new Adobe Reader addresses the concerns of those who use the product to fill out forms — and who have been frustrated by their inability to save filled-in data — by allowing them to save their input in a new copy of the form, using Adobe Reader enabled by Acrobat 8 Professional or Acrobat 3D version 8. In addition, those products enable users to digitally sign documents with Reader.”
The Gartner analysts conclude with two recommendations:
• “Enterprises already dependent on Acrobat for design, packaging and delivery of documents should consider this to be a critical upgrade.”
• “Casual Acrobat users whose primary occupation is creative and who also use Creative Suite may want to wait until 2007, when the new Acrobat will be bundled with Creative Suite 3. Until then, it is also available in Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 Premium along with Dreamweaver 8.”
