Adobe Document Cloud Takes Your Work Wherever You Go
Even traditional workers may soon have nowhere to hide. Continuing its invasion of the cloud, Adobe is announcing its third "Cloud" product, following its more popular Creative Cloud (CC) and less known Marketing Cloud. While Document Cloud may sound like a storage service that will take on Dropbox or Google Drive, it is actually a more focused product. While it does store documents on the cloud, it is actually more interested in getting you and others to sign them or to keep track of changes to them.
A lot of our files have moved to the cloud, mostly our photos, music, and videos. While these might be excellent for consuming content, and maybe sometimes even for work, a lot of business documents and processes are still tied down to the desk by physical paper. Adobe might perhaps be more popular with its creative (now Creative Cloud) products like Photoshop, it is also responsible for the PDF file format, the Acrobat software and EchoSign, which has now been rebranded as eSign. And it is these three that Adobe is now bringing to the cloud via Document Cloud.
Like what it did with Photoshop and Photoshop CC, Adobe is making available a Document Cloud enabled version of its Acrobat software called, what else, Acrobat DC. And like any other Acrobat version, this allows users to not only read but also create PDF documents. They can create one out of photos of a document, using Object Character Recognition or OCR. Adobe Document Cloud also include eSign/EchoSign, which makes short work of filling up forms on digital documents as well as signing them, using either a stylus or even your finger. There's also document management and control services like Send & Track or Mobile or Mobile Link for keeping your settings and files in sync across multiple devices.
Like Creative Cloud, the new Document Cloud, which will become available within 30 days, is a subscription based service. An Acrobat DC will cost users $12.99 a month for standard version or $14.99 for a Pro subscription. There are, however, also options for a perpetual license, which will cost $299 and $449 for standard and pro versions, respectively.