"Since nearly everyone already has the Flash Player installed, Acrobat Connect makes it extremely easy to go from looking at your computer screen to sharing it with others, regardless of their platform or version of software," said Tom Hale (pictured), Adobe's senior vice president, Knowledge Worker Business Unit, as Macromedia's Breeze was relaunched yesterday: as "Acrobat Connect."

"We believe web collaboration needs to be as easy as sending and viewing a PDF document, so anyone can reap the benefits of meeting online in real-time,” he continued.

The Acrobat Connect hosted service provides users with essential collaboration tools, such as screen sharing, whiteboarding, chat, video conferencing, and audio conferencing. Acrobat Connect enables anyone with a Flash software-enabled web browser to join a web meeting without having to download cumbersome software. Additionally, with one-button “Start Meeting” access from Acrobat 8 and Adobe Reader 8 software, users can also launch Acrobat Connect directly from a document to start collaborating immediately.

Now reinvented as a complete product line consisting of Adobe Acrobat Connect and Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, what used to be Breeze smoothly enables knowledge workers to connect online in real time with nothing more than a web browser and the ubiquitous Flash Player software.

Together with Acrobat 8 software, Adobe is confident that the expanded Acrobat family will accelerate the flow of business by allowing people to easily work together in real-time.

Beyond the baseline functionality of Acrobat Connect, Acrobat Connect Professional offers a rich set of collaboration tools. These include support for large meetings, reporting, content management, extensive user and meeting management capabilities, support for interactive multimedia, integrated telephony, and Voice over Internet Protocol. In addition, developers can use the Acrobat Connect Collaboration Builder SDK to create custom interactive applications such as engaging learning games and simulations.

“Casual web conferencing users have different needs than intensive users,” said Jeffrey Mann, Research Vice President for Gartner, Inc. “Lightweight collaboration requires easy-to-use tools in order to spread throughout an organization. Users participating in processes which require intensive use of collaborative functionality need more capabilities. Catering for both use cases will increase flexibility and enable richer interactions.”

• Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional Enhances Adobe Creative Suite 2.3