LiveCycle Collaboration Service was the subject of a research report by Gartner Research, which you can read here: http://www.gartner.com/resources/171800/171891/adobes_new_collaboration_ser_171891.pdf
Exciting to see some external acknowledgment of the incredible potential behind this technology framework.
From the report:
Adobe will likely become the first vendor to offer cloud-based component collaboration services that can be integrated into business applications. For example, an enterprise could create a training tool for sales agents where the students act as customers to help each other improve skills for customer interaction and upselling.
I just came across a relatively new resource for developers integrating Connect Pro with various systems via the XML Web Services that have been in Connect Pro for a long time. In response to a number of questions on connectusers.com about integration examples, this site was created to focus on providing clear examples of uses of the APIs. For anyone beginning to wrap their heads around these services, I would definitely recommend following the blog. You can reach it here: http://www.connectbyexample.com/blog/
If you are interested in learning more about the technology under the hood of LiveCycle Collaboration Service, I’d suggest reviewing this presentation by Ryan Stewart from Adobe:
http://max.adobe.com/online/session/272
There are a number of exciting announcements happening at Adobe MAX this year, but one that is near and dear to ConnectSolutions is focused on Adobe LiveCycle Collaboration Service. LiveCycle Collaboration Service is the new name for what was once Adobe Flash Collaboration Service (and for early followers, CoCoMo), and with today’s announcements, it is now commercially available in two forms:
Using the Adobe® LiveCycle® Collaboration Service, organizations can easily build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) that include real-time, multiuser collaboration tools. This means that your organization can explore opportunities to:
- Easily integrate text chat, whiteboard, webcam, and VoIP functionality.
- Rapidly build and deploy applications with the complete SDK.
- Manage user and session data.
- Host applications in a managed environment.
A datasheet is available here from Adobe on the overall capabilities of LiveCycle Collaboration Service.
For federal employees, telework is a mandated option (read more about ConnectSolutions support of FISMA-compliant web conferencing), and with the productivity gains combined with the benefits of remote work in the face of pandemic flu concerns, a very logical option at that. It is good to see the continued support for telework by Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry and federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra:
“When you think about it, the president is really the teleworker in chief. He’s connected wherever he goes,” Berry said. “Yesterday was a good example: New York City in the morning, Pittsburgh in the afternoon and Washington at night. While the president has a little bit of a unique position, and everyone can’t have all of his communications gear, the technology is catching up to that.”
Source
The reality is that everyone does have access to sufficient communication systems to empower successful telework. We’ve been doing this for quite some time with thousands of federal employees, and look forward to continuing to expand upon these services with ConnectSolutions Podium for large-scale events and communication efforts as well.
ConnectSolutions has had the opportunity to support a variety of webcasts for President Obama through its partnership with the U.S. State Department and its highly successful CO.NX program, but we’ll have to work on providing him with his own personal virtual oval office meeting room as well.
Bit off-topic here, but this was too funny to pass on. I was driving up 101N from our Burlingame to Oakland office this morning, when I came upon one of the most absurd uses of a huge flat-bed truck I’ve ever seen:
Yes…that really is a single bike being transported on a gigantic flatbed towards San Francisco. So much for lowering carbon footprints with bikes.
ConnectSolutions’ customer success over the past few years has been fueled by three key ingredients:
- No-limits Customer Service = From day one, our company culture has centered around extreme empathy for our customers, and the result is that everyone in the company has consistently demonstrated their willingness and motivation to do whatever it takes to make our customers and partners successful. Required reading around here is Jack Mitchell’s “Hug Your Customers,” and we draw lots of inspiration from other examples such as Zappos and others.
- Great Technology = Combining award-winning products from Adobe, with our own Engineering and Operations innovations, has provided organizations with an extremely reliable and scalable platform to support adoption and rapid growth. Reliable technology combined with passionate customer service is proving to be a deadly combination to our competition…
- Coffee…
That last bullet is what brought me to Starbucks this morning in Burlingame, CA, and resulted in a great reminder of how important exceptional customer service is for businesses of any size. I hadn’t been in that store for some time, and yet the manager said “Hello Michael.” No use of fancy CRM systems, just “WOW” customer service. Then, as I waited for my coffee to be brewed, I noticed this same manager quickly pulling all of the staff together in front of the line of waiting customers. Suddenly, they were all singing “Happy Birthday” to a man who appeared to be in his upper-80s, and all of the customers in the store jumped right-in with them. This man was almost in tears at the sound of 30 people singing to him. If that’s not “hugging” your customers, I don’t know what is.
ConnectSolutions Customers: expect a note from me looking for birthdays…
Adobe Systems announced some big news today with its planned acquisition of Omniture. In the short time since, I’ve been asked by customers and a few analysts about our perspectives on it. I don’t have any information other than what’s out on the various PR announcements and blogs. That said, I do have an opinion 
In discussing the acquisition, Adobe’s Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen stated:
“This is a game changer for both Adobe and our customers,” Narayen said in a statement. “We will enable advertisers, media companies and e-tailers to realize the full value of their digital assets.”
The rich internet application (RIA) proponents have long since stood by the concept of rich, engaging experiences driving more revenue, customer satisfaction, eyeballs, etc… While we all may agree that great experiences build great businesses (Zappos, Amazon, and others come to mind), many RIA projects lack the hardened metrics to back up this intuition. Given this gap in metrics, this acquisition is strategic in turning the RIA-defense from intuition to fact.
However, I suspect this acquisition was driven by an even more strategic imperative: transitioning Adobe from one of the world’s greatest boxed product vendors to that of a true services-based powerhouse. While the wonderful tracking and metrics analysis from Omniture will be useful for Adobe and its customers, I have to imagine the “hidden gem” in this purchase is that of the Omniture services architecture and operations. Omniture is currently supporting more than 1 Trillion transactions per quarter. The embedded domain expertise to make that happen inside Omniture has to be of great value for Adobe in this transition. The transfusion of Omniture’s massive services know-how into Adobe’s foray into services-based products that mirror their rich heritage in desktop products, has definitely got me excited about the potential.
What are your thoughts?
