Dubai, UAE - September 13, 2004 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ: ADBE) today announced it has extended the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform with new software that delivers document services technologies to help organizations automate business processes. The new server software, named Adobe LiveCycle, delivers document services to integrate manual processes into enterprise applications. Now, customers in the Middle East can address business critical issues such as improving customer communications, increasing internal operational efficiencies, and helping them meet compliance mandates.
"With the rapid integration of IT in enterprise infrastructures, organizations in the Middle East, in every market segment, are seeking to optimize the benefits of developing and maintaining enterprise critical document banks. The Adobe LiveCycle has been designed to maximize client ROI (Return-on-Investment) by switching erstwhile manual processes to automated workflows," said Andrew Lindstrom, Adobe Systems, Regional Manager, Middle East, Africa and Indian Ocean Islands. "Besides enhancing process management and document security, the new software also contributes significantly to downsizing client costs involved in document generation and management."
The Adobe Intelligent Document Platform helps customers address the entire document lifecycle in the enterprise. The platform consists of three components: The Intelligent Document, Document Services and the Universal Client. Intelligent documents combine the power of XML and business logic with PDF to move data to and from back-end systems using document services from Adobe. The company's document services deliver document generation, collaboration, process management and document security and control capabilities for integrating intelligent documents into enterprise applications. The universal client is the ubiquitous Adobe Reader that lets individuals interact with intelligent documents inside and outside the firewall.
"There is a major transformation taking place addressing the costs associated with the entire lifecycle of documents and other content in the enterprise. At the same time, organisations are taking a hard look at how they can extend their enterprise systems to extract more value," said Andy Warzecha, META Group. "With the Intelligent Document Platform, Adobe is leveraging the millions of copies of Adobe Readers distributed and delivering a series of infrastructure level services to take documents well beyond their traditional static nature, so that enterprises can take a more strategic view of how documents can extend business processes to be more cost effective."
"IBM and Adobe share a vision to enable customers to move, access and use information in today's On Demand business environments," said John Swainson, IBM General Manager, Application Integration and Middleware. "Adobe's Intelligent Document Platform takes the powerful capabilities of PDF and XML to unlock the business critical information in documents that remain outside of enterprise systems and on paper. Adobe's document services running on IBM middleware enable On Demand enterprises to integrate documents that are strategic to core business processes and extract more value out of their enterprise systems."
Adobe also announced today two new document services that are available through Adobe LiveCycle software. The new services are process management and document control and security. The process management service gives customers the power to design, initiate, modify and enable people to participate in processes on or offline. The document security and control service enables them to apply persistent document security features across the extended enterprise for a greater level of security in communications.
-Ends-
Adobe LiveCycle
Adobe LiveCycle software is built on a common server architecture based on Java 2 Enterprise Edition and XML, allowing for easy integration into enterprise infrastructures by providing Java APIs and support for Web services protocols. Adobe LiveCycle is optimized for IBM WebSphere and can be deployed on JBoss. Support is planned for BEA WebLogic for the first half of 2005. The servers run on IBM AIX (optimized), Microsoft Windows Server, Red Hat Linux, Sun Solaris and HP-UX. Support for the Novell SUSE LINUX platform is planned for the first half of 2005. Because Adobe LiveCycle supports industry standards such as XML and Web services, customers can deploy document services in today's Service Oriented Architectures (SOA).
About Adobe Systems
Adobe helps people and businesses communicate better through its world-leading digital imaging, design and document technology platforms for consumers, creative professionals and enterprises. Adobe's revenue in the last fiscal year exceeded $1.2 billion. For more information about Adobe, visit: www.adobe.com
Orient Planet PR & Marketing Communications
PO Box 23345,
Dubai,
UAE
Tel : +971 4 3988901,
Fax : +971 4 3988941
Email : info@orientplanet.com
Website: www.orientplanet.com
© Press Release 2004



















