Adobe's popular Acrobat.com cloud-based software suite has finally dropped its beta status – although it's not all good news, as the company has plans to start charging for some services.
As reported over on CNet, the company is keeping the five million users it has built up over the beta period and will always have basic functionality available for free. However, Adobe is introducing “premium plans” which will unlock additional features in the packages.
For those wanting to convert their cloud-based documents to PDF, Adobe is set to offer the “premium basic” package which will cost $14.99 month – allowing up to ten conversion each month. The package will also give you meetings via the cut-down version of Adobe Connect – ConnectNow – with up to five participants.
If you're a business user, you'll probably be wanting to look at the “premium plus” account for a not-inconsiderable $39 per month. This removes the restriction on how many PDF conversions you can carry out, and have ConnectNow meetings with up to twenty participants.
Although free accounts will still be on offer, these will be limited to five PDF conversions and meetings with just two participants – down from the three participants that the beta version offered.
The move away from beta also brings a collaborative spreadsheet application dubbed Tables. Based around a similar design to the company's collaborative word processor Buzzword, the Tables application is currently only available via the Adobe Labs beta testing site. As a beta service, access is currently free – and the company reportedly has no plans to limit access to paying customers once the service has finally gone gold.
Can you see yourself paying out for a subscription to Adobe's cloud services, or does cloud computing only hold appeal when it's free? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
As reported over on CNet, the company is keeping the five million users it has built up over the beta period and will always have basic functionality available for free. However, Adobe is introducing “premium plans” which will unlock additional features in the packages.
For those wanting to convert their cloud-based documents to PDF, Adobe is set to offer the “premium basic” package which will cost $14.99 month – allowing up to ten conversion each month. The package will also give you meetings via the cut-down version of Adobe Connect – ConnectNow – with up to five participants.
If you're a business user, you'll probably be wanting to look at the “premium plus” account for a not-inconsiderable $39 per month. This removes the restriction on how many PDF conversions you can carry out, and have ConnectNow meetings with up to twenty participants.
Although free accounts will still be on offer, these will be limited to five PDF conversions and meetings with just two participants – down from the three participants that the beta version offered.
The move away from beta also brings a collaborative spreadsheet application dubbed Tables. Based around a similar design to the company's collaborative word processor Buzzword, the Tables application is currently only available via the Adobe Labs beta testing site. As a beta service, access is currently free – and the company reportedly has no plans to limit access to paying customers once the service has finally gone gold.
Can you see yourself paying out for a subscription to Adobe's cloud services, or does cloud computing only hold appeal when it's free? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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