Adobe starts charging for Acrobat.com

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 15 Jun 2009 at 08:52

Adobe has launched premium accounts for Acrobat.com, as it attempts to cash-in on the online documents service.

Acrobat.com allows users to create PDFs online and collaborate on various types of document. The company's impressive Buzzword word processor will soon be joined by presentation and spreadsheet software, which are now available for public testing on the Adobe Labs site.

The company claims that more than 5 million people have signed up for Acrobat.com since it arrived in beta form in June 2008. Now, Adobe plans to charge those who want to continue to take full advantage of the service.

Premium Basic subscribers will be able to covert 10 PDFs a month and join online meetings with up to five participants for $14.99 (£9.20) a month. Premium Plus subscribers get unlimited PDFs and meetings with up to 10 participants for $39 (£23.90) a month.

Free accounts will still exist, but they are limited to five PDFs a month and only three participants in online meetings.

The paid-for accounts are currently only available in North America, although it seems inconceivable that Adobe won't eventually offer the subscriptions over here.

Aside from the addition of the spreadsheet and presentation software, Adobe is planning to make further enhancements to the Acrobat.com service over the coming year.

These include full smartphone access, deeper integration with Office 2007 and shared team workspaces.