Flaw in Adobe Reader 8.1

The hacker who discovered a recently patched QuickTime flaw affecting the Firefox browser says he has found an equally serious flaw in Adobe Systems Inc.'s PDF file format.

"Adobe Acrobat/Reader PDF documents can be used to compromise your Windows box. Completely!!! Invisibly and unwillingly!!!," wrote Petko Petkov, in a breathless Thursday blog posting. "All it takes is to open a PDF document or stumble across a page which embeds one."

Petkov said he had confirmed the issue on Adobe Reader 8.1 on Windows XP and that other versions may be affected.

The security researcher said he would not release code that shows how this attack works until Adobe provided a patch for the problem, but he has already sent other software developers scrambling for bug fixes over the past week.

Read more on PC World

IBM and Adobe?

Excerpted from Seeking Alpha Blog

IBM buying Adobe? The the rumor millers are getting creative these days. At present, ADBE has a market value of just under $26 bln vs. the market cap of IBM at $153 bln. Big Blue also has around $10 bln in cash on its balance sheet. So it is conceivable that IBM could engineer such a deal, but I find it hard to believe that ADBE management would sell out and find it harder to imagine how ADBE culture would mesh with IBM culture since I know IBMers here in the Hudson Valley and what's going on at Big Blue these days.

Incidentally, ADBE will post earnings Thursday evening. While press reports say the rise in ADBE today was due to optimism about earnings, the IBM rumor did indeed hit a number of trading desks that I'm in touch with. There's no doubt that ADBE will also post strong results tomorrow night. 36c is the Reuters consensus estimate for the bottom line, 730.1 mln is the top line estimate.

The better bet with ADBE is likely to go with the earnings story, and avoid speculating on the outlandish IBM for ADBE rumor.

Motley Fool forecasts strong Adobe
If you've ever done anything creative on a computer -- except perhaps writing fiction -- you've seen the content creation tools Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) makes a living out of. The company releases second-quarter earnings Thursday night, so we're checking up on this mighty, mighty software creator for you.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or waffle? Thirty-one analyst firms follow Adobe. There are 21 buy ratings, 10 holds, and no sell recommendations. Our Motley Fool CAPS players have issued over 600 ratings on the stock, giving it a solid four-star rating.
• Revenues. Management guidance points to a $700 million to $740 million range, and the average Wall Street forecast says $728 million. That's 14% above the year-ago $635 million.
• Earnings. The official guidance zone ranges from $0.34 to $0.36 per share, and the analyst consensus falls exactly between the endpoints at $0.35 per share. That's up from $0.31 last year.

What management says:
In the last earnings report, CEO Bruce Chizen prepared us for what he called the biggest product launch in Adobe's history. More on that below. Chizen also said that he was "excited about our opportunities and bullish about our prospects for another year of strong performance."

What management does:
The slipping gross margins are hardly ideal, but they're acceptable in the light of tasty revenue growth. A similar bottom-line downtrend in margins was just reversed, but trailing dollar earnings have actually declined lately.

Read more

from Techcrunch

Adobe moved its new Apollo Platform forward this evening by releasing the beta version (the href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/18/adobe-apollo-launches-so-go-build-something/">previous Apollo release was a developer preview). They’ve also renamed the platform to Adobe Integrated Runtime. They’re referring to it as “Adobe AIR” (meaning Adobe is in the name twice, but who’s counting).

The new version fully supports HTML and Ajax, meaning Apollo applications can be created without using any Flash at all. They are also releasing an extension to Dreamweaver web development software.

Adobe is also now saying that AIR will be fully launched by end of year.

Adobe in India

Adobe for anti-piracy watchdog in India
Adobe Systems, the $2.6 billion San Jose (US) based desktop publishing software company, wants the Union government to create an anti-piracy regulatory body for a faster redressal system with a country-wide campaign to spread awareness among the people.

Sandeep Mehrotra, the country sales manager of Adobe, who was in Kolkata to announce the company's plans for the eastern region, said for every Adobe product, there are 8 to 9 pirated copies in India. Adobe plans to introduce its latest offering Adobe Creative Suite 3 product line in the eastern region.

"In the last one year, piracy in India has come down by one percentage point, which is not at all satisfactory. To make things more effective, we need a separate government body," Mehrotra said.

He said Adobe is bullish about the eastern region as there is growth in demand for books, magazines and newspapers. "We see more demand of our software products in the publishing industry," Mehrotra said.

Adobe has decided to tie up with educational institutes both at the school and college levels to provide tools and software to the institutes.

Mac firewall security flaw in Adobe CS3

clipped from www.macworld.co.uk Security experts are warning of an issue within Adobe CS3's Version Cue application which can disable a Mac's built-in firewall. An alert from the experts at Secunia warns that Adobe Version Cue disables a Mac's firewall when it is installed. It does so in order to set certain ports up for "controlled access through the firewall", the experts said.The problem is that the installer doesn't re-enable the firewall once installation is complete, leaving certain system services vulnerable to attacks. The security issue is reported in Adobe Version Cue CS3 Server, installed as part of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium, or Web Standard editions, Secunia explains. There is a simple fix to the flaw, which is rated as "less critical" – users simply need to re-enable their Mac OS X firewall in System Preferences once installation is complete.

Adobe Cannes film competition reaches zenith

clipped from www.macworld.co.uk Adobe will announce the winners of its online documentary competition at a star-studded event at the Cannes Film Festival tomorrow night. As announced earlier this month, Adobe, Intel and the Vancouver Film School got together to promote a global documentary-making competition called Reel Ideas Studio. The partners gave film-makers a 23 May deadline to deliver their three-to-five minute short documentary - some film-makers will still be applying the finishing touches to their movie right now, as they have until 4pm today to deliver their entry (in Flash video format) online. Writer and producer Christopher Coppola of Plaster City, Dan Birman, professor of journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication, and two-time Oscar-winning documentary producer Robert Epstein will judge the competition and the winners will see their films screened tomorrow night in Cannes.

Adobe banking on its 'cool' factor

BOSTON--Adobe Systems sees the so-called YouTube generation as its next big customer base.

At the JPMorgan Technology Conference here on Tuesday, Adobe CEO Bruce ChizenCreative Suite 3 software packages. explained how his company sees the market for its line of

While Adobe has traditionally considered its base to comprise about 3 million professionals who return for each new software edition and continue to buy other Adobe products, that base is skewing toward nonprofessionals.

Chizen said his company estimates that there are about 38 million "aspiring professionals or amateur users" who want to be able to say they use what the pros use. They are now buying Adobe's lower-end packages. He cited several examples of young family members and friends who have suddenly become interested in getting "freebies." He contends that Adobe software is the new cool thing to have among the Web 2.0 set.

"Because of the social sites and sites like YouTube, everyone wants to create stuff that looks cool," Chizen said.

Chizen was pressed with questions from analysts on the price differences between Creative Suite 3 and Creative Suite 2 products. He initially said that because of CS3's new features and configurations, the comparison is akin to that of apples to oranges, but then he decided to answer the question.

"We still have lower price SKUs 'cause we don't want to alienate the 38 million-plus noncreative professionals. We have a lot of customer loyalty. We know customers will pay more, but we don't want them hating us 'cause we know that that will come back to haunt us," Chizen said. "I don't want our customers to have a perception of Adobe like the perception some have with Microsoft--like they're being held hostage."

Case Study of ARTS PDF vs. Adobe

clipped from www.inc.com For 10 years, Karl De Abrew and Sam Chandler had a happy, productive relationship with Adobe, developing plug-ins to enhance Acrobat PDF software and consulting with the software giant, based in San Jose, California, on developer support. And Adobe seemed just as happy with ARTS PDF, De Abrew and Chandler's Melbourne, Australia-based company; it even sponsored ARTS PDF's online community of PDF users, Planet PDF. By 2003, ARTS PDF had 30 full-time employees and half of its $3 million in annual revenue came from Adobe-related projects. But the two partners were plotting a move that once would have seemed insane--severing the relationship and instead competing with Adobe with a PDF product of their own. The problem was the way Adobe had begun treating third-party developers like ARTS PDF. Since the release of Adobe Acrobat in 1993, such developers had been key to Adobe's strategy. The company created the application with an open standard, giving any developer access to the software's specifications and a free license to create applications to extend its capabilities. Hundreds of third-party developers had based their businesses on Acrobat. ARTS PDF, for example, scored a big hit with a plug-in that, among other things, allows users to activate Web links in PDF documents, and sells the software on its own website, PDF Store. But Adobe's CEO, Bruce Chizen, who took over from co-founder John Warnock in 2000, had grown wary of working with outsiders. Warnock used to refer to the hundreds of third-party developers as Adobe's "ecosystem." Under Chizen's leadership, however, the company began reengineering the third-party plug-ins itself, incorporating them into new and increasingly complicated versions of Acrobat. That sparked concern among developers. If consumers could buy Acrobat software loaded with the latest extras, they would no longer need plug-ins.

Adobe Makes Alpha Version Of Apollo Available

clipped from www.efytimes.com Saturday, May 19, 2007: Adobe Systems Incorporated has made available for developers the first public alpha version of Apollo on Adobe Labs. Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system application runtime that allows web developers to leverage their existing skills in HTML, JavaScript and Ajax, as well as Adobe Flash and Adobe Flex software to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop. “RIAs have become a core element of today’s web computing experience. We’re working to enable this new generation of innovative applications to bridge the chasm between the web and the personal computer. Apollo will empower millions of web developers to make their RIAs first-class citizens on the desktop using the tools they already know,” said Kevin Lynch, senior vice president and chief software architect, Adobe.

Adobe Agressive in Southern India

clipped from www.efytimes.com Wednesday, May 09, 2007: Adobe India has announced its plans for southern India post the launch of its latest offering, Adobe Creative Suite 3 product line, which unites the Adobe and Macromedia product innovation to provide designers and developers with a broad spectrum of creative options for all facets of print, web, mobile, interactive, film and video production. There are six all-new configurations of Adobe Creative Suite 3: Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium and Design Standard editions; Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium and Web Standard editions; and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium.

DigitalPost wins Adobe Site of the Day

clipped from www.marketwire.com -- May 10, 2007 -- DigitalPost Interactive, DigitalPostInteractive, a provider of user-friendly Web platforms for digital media sharing and social networking, announced today that its flagship site TheFamilyPost has been selected as the official Adobe Site of the Day for Friday, May 4th, 2007. Adobe recognizes outstanding websites through its Site of the Day program.Site of the Day websites exemplify strong visual design, superiorfunctionality, and innovative usage of Adobe products. Site of the Day is one of the most popular sections of adobe.com. Adobe receives many Site of the Day submissions of excellent, innovative, and results-proven projects built with Adobe technology, and it features the best examples fromorganizations spanning diverse industries from boutique agencies, largecreative firms, partners, as well as submissions from enterprises and the public sector.

Adobe Fosters Student Filmmaking at Cannes

clipped from www.tmcnet.com SAN JOSE, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that it is teaming with Vancouver Film School and Intel on Reel Ideas Studio, a global program to bring together student and professional filmmakers during the 60th Annual Cannes Film Festival taking place May 16 to 27 in Cannes, France. The Reel Ideas Studio program features two documentary film competitions and an online community at reelideasstudio.com, where participants and winners will be highlighted.

Adobe launches Creative Suite 3 in India

clipped from economictimes.indiatimes.com MUMBAI: Adobe India, the leading global creative software developer, today unveiled the Creative Suite 3 product line in India with all facets of print, web, mobile, interactive, film and video production. "This is the biggest launch in Adobe's 25 year history," company Senior Vice President Naresh Gupta told reporters here through video conferencing. There are six all-new configurations of Adobe Creative Suite 3 including Adobe CS 3 Design Premium and Standard editions, Adobe CS 3 Web Premium and Standard editions and Adobe CS 3 Production Premium. Rounding out the product line is Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection which combines 12 of Adobe's new design and development applications. "In a step to come closer to consumers, we are increasing out Adobe Authorised Resellers from the present 50 to 70 and we will take aggressive steps for anti-piracy while undertaking initiatives to educate people," Adobe Systems Country Sales Manager Sandeep Mehrotra said.

Adobe missing from Microsoft's will-run-on-Vista list

http://reseller.co.nz/reseller.nsf/news/F8DBCD95A252597CCC25728A000DAEB9
Microsoft has released a list of 800 applications it has officially verified so far to run bug-free on Windows Vista.

The list is notable for both its brevity and the absence of many applications popular on Windows XP, although Microsoft and analysts said that the majority of XP software can run, albeit with hiccups, on Vista.

Popular Windows software that is conspicuously missing from Microsoft's list includes Adobe Systems Inc.'s entire line of graphics and multimedia software, Symantec Corp.'s security products, as well as the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox Web browser, Skype Ltd.'s free voice-over-IP software and the OpenOffice.org alternative to Microsoft Office.