Introduction to Acrobat Connect Professional by Adobe

About a decade ago virtual meeting, conferencing was just an idea, now that idea not only came into reality but as well flourishing and expending beyond traditional boundaries. A lot of conferencing application/software you will find now which offers us rich arrays of features and functionality to make virtual meeting almost as realistic as the real one. We even have VR (Virtual Reality) conference in Second Life. Sounds the situation is pretty much cool right? But I am afraid it isn’t. When it comes to cost-effective, organized total conferencing solution that you can rely on, only a handful of them will be in your list of choice.

First of all you have to understand we are talking about professional solution that fits the needs of from small business to corporation, not individual/personal. For personal solution I am still happy with my Skype, there are plenty more to choose from. Nowadays a most business needs not only a tele/web conferencing as well as a collaboration method integrated with the solution. Very few software/application currently poses that, if not costumed tailored. Last month I talked about “Microsoft Office Live Meeting”, which is one of the few solutions that made it to this category. Off course Microsoft’s Unified Communication Portal which is still in beta stage is intended to deliver much more sophisticated solutions. Anyway our discussion today isn’t Microsoft’s solution; instead we want to check out “Acrobat Connect Professional” by Adobe.

Acrobat Connect Professional is part of adobe’s Acrobat family product line, which can be either Hosted or self-managed solution. Both presenter and participants need almost similar system requirements, though the presenter’s OS (operating system) has to be either windows or Mac. This solution is packed with some serious features all integrated which actually we can get using several solutions elsewhere.

Here is the rundown of the key features of Adobe Acrobat Professional:

24/7/365 Personal meeting space

Unlike Office live meeting Acrobat Connect Professional meeting rooms are always available via a steady URL. All personal settings/options are automatically saved since the first use, and automatically loaded there on for saving time and efforts. Even the layouts, previous notes, conversation history are saved for further reference if needed.

Easy application & desktop sharing

A presenter can virtually take control of shared applications, documents, whiteboards even the desktop viewing pane of the participants. The ability to synchronize view of all participants’ is another added bonus. Presenter can as well control the screen size/mode of shared application, screen etc. remotely.

Full Management

It’s always good to be in full control when it comes to business. Acrobat Connect professional gives user ability to fully manage each and every aspects of a virtual meeting/conference. It allows you to schedule meetings, invite attendees, and set access permissions on the fly. You can set up rooms/portals specific to a subject, audience, or presenter. Not only that you can assign constant rooms for frequent meetings, and control who has access to content and meetings. Easier IM contact list like attendee management gives another extra push to better management.

Personalization

This is the part a lot of we are interested in. There are several services out there who offer small scale conferencing solution but none of them exactly let you personalize your own virtual gathering. Acrobat Connect professional let you personalize every aspects, from meeting room layouts to your own 100% branding. Through meeting room layout, you organize how your meeting room will look like, what will be the content. So virtually you control the meeting flow and content, which helps valuable real estate management on the meeting pane. Apart from just layout changing you can put up your company logo, changing colours; menu items etc. almost everything to make it your own.

Reuse and Re-sync

Well we may be used to with one time use stuff, but for better time, cost and resource management it’s always wise to reuse/recycle whenever it’s possible. The folks at Adobe know that too, that’s why Acrobat Connect professional let you save your layout, contents etc. as re-usable template, which can be used in the future meetings. Meeting created from those template loads with previously used layout, document, preference, attendee list automatically. From there with minimal changes you can go on with similar meeting without spending much time/efforts.

Rich compatibility

Though an Acrobat Connect professional presenter has to be using either a Mac or Windows based PC but the attendee can be using Linux, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS. This can be also integrated with Microsoft Outlook. You can schedule online meetings right from your Outlook calendar, using integrated address book, availability look-up and meeting recurrence features. Users also can join your meetings from within their Outlook calendars. Acrobat Connect Professional provides full support for power point presentation, animations, streaming video, Flash movies and audio, and high-resolution graphics. Not only that you can easily share rich content, including video clips and Adobe Captivate simulations. Printable document such as MS DOC, Open office doc can be converted as flash video and shared, so the other users don’t have to face compatibility issues.

Archiving & Reporting

Thanks to built-in streaming server the content is always delivered appropriate to user’s bandwidth. You can record meetings, including synchronized audio for either VoIP or telephone audio conferencing with just a few clicks. You can also get detailed statistics on meetings and users to measure attendance in real-time or after the meeting. Online meeting presenters can gather feedback in real time through Acrobat Connect Professional polls. Presenters can easily create polls, track responses immediately, and even download data for reporting and analysis after meetings. Who says virtual meeting can’t be realistic!

High-end Collaboration

Say virtual meeting, conference or seminar without real-time collaboration it won’t be realistic after all. Don’t worry this app got it all covered. You can comment on over screen sharing, content and blank whiteboards using standard tools or your own custom annotation shapes. Save whiteboard overlays in continual Acrobat Connect Professional meeting rooms, and add to them in future sessions.

Apart from all above mentioned tempting features, Acrobat Connect Professional do posses all the obvious perks like- Audio conference call control, Internet broadcasting, moderation, multiple simultaneous meeting/ presentation, Multiple video conferencing, preparation mode etc. Now let’s talk about the real deal, the wallet thought.

All Acrobat Connect Professional and supporting Adobe Connect applications are available for purchase as licensed software or through an annual subscription and can be used in combination depending on the needs of your organization. A hosted or licensed version of the Adobe Connect Enterprise Server is required to run Acrobat Connect Professional and supporting Adobe Connect applications.

As you can see can see this solution is tailored according to client/buyer’s needs, rather than just a pre-pack deal. This can vary from $0.32/ minute/participant to $750/mo without additional features. Off course if you are planning to use for less than 15 users the Adobe Acrobat Connect would be much suitable for you which cost just under $400/year. In fact you are in charge of what you want to spend, since there aren’t any setup charges or whatsoever.

Cons: This product can be very expensive, especially if you host it in-house (behind your own company firewall). Since in that case most likely you need to go through a third-party to get it implemented. Anticipate the extra expense. To get better advantage of Acrobat connect professional, you need to train the users. It isn’t actually a rocket science but not also 1+1 case.