Last week, Investor's Business Daily ran a column by Patrick Seitz talking about the recent Adobe announcements. It included a phrase that I have seen repeated in a number of other articles and news stories: "Acrobat 8 contains Macromedia's Breeze software for Web conferencing."
This is not quite accurate, according to Bryant Bell, Adobe marketing manager for the Breeze/Connect software. He tells me that you will still need a separate license for use of the Connect or Connect Professional software. You'll have an account and an online space to conduct meetings. Acrobat 8 simply gives you a convenient button to "Launch my meeting room."
By the way, to scotch a couple of other rumors I've seen bandied about on the web... Acrobat Reader will not have the launch meeting button. Only the Acrobat standard and professional versions (the ones you pay for) will have it. Meeting attendees do not need any Acrobat software to attend a meeting launched from within Acrobat. And there is no automatic sharing of the document you launched from. That would be an option for inclusion in the meeting content, just as it is now -- along with anything else you want to share.
I was also trying to get a better feel for the differences between Acrobat Connect and Acrobat Connect Professional. Connect Professional is pretty much the exact Macromedia Breeze product we know already, so it doesn't need much new explanation. I wanted to find out what you lose by stepping down to Connect standard.
I learned that you can't upload documents to your meeting space and keep them persistent between sessions. You also don't have the flexibility in viewing/hiding individual content or functionality pods as you do in Connect Professional. We'll find more information as the products get rolled out.
Technorati Tags: Acrobat Connect, Adobe, Macromedia, Macromedia Breeze, web conference, web conferencing
