Kuala Lumpur, 5 July 2016 – On July 1, 2016, a new European Union signature regulation came into effect, helping pave the way for global adoption of secure digital signatures. Aligned with this milestone that will help take digital signatures mainstream, Adobe today announced the Cloud Signature Consortium, a group comprised of leading industry and academic organizations committed to building a new open standard for cloud-based digital signatures across mobile and web – so anyone can digitally sign documents from anywhere.
Digital signatures are the most advanced and secure type of electronic signature, increasingly used by businesses and governments around the world. However, using standards-compliant digital signatures today can be a cumbersome, time consuming process that keeps people tethered to their desktop. In many cases, they need certificate-based IDs stored on a physical device, like a USB token or smart card. This approach doesn’t meet increasing consumer and business expectations for simple and engaging experiences that work anywhere, on any device.
And, while some cloud-based digital signature solutions exist, they are proprietary and fragmented, rather than an open approach that offers a choice of certificate providers. As a leader and founding member of the new consortium, Adobe is collaborating with industry leaders to develop an open standard that will bring the world’s most secure form of electronic signing to over seven billion mobile devices around the globe.
“Adobe has a history of pioneering and advancing industry standards like PDF. We embrace open standards and, where none exist, we help create them,” said Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager of Digital Media, Adobe. “With more than six billion digital and electronic signature transactions processed each year through Adobe Sign and Adobe Document Cloud, we are focused on moving the signature industry forward. Today, in collaboration with the Cloud Signature Consortium, we are proud to advance an open standard for cloud-based digital signatures.”
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Why an open standard is needed
The new standard created by the consortium will be critical to furthering digital transformation of business on a global scale by giving everyone access to secure digital signature solutions across a full range of cloud applications and mobile devices. Once implemented, the standard will benefit processes where signer identification is critical, such as applying for a marriage or business license, social security benefits, or signing for a large loan.
While initially focused on the EU, the Cloud Signature Consortium aims to build a global network of industry contributors and intends to release new standard specifications by the end of 2016—with the first cloud-based implementations to follow shortly thereafter. The consortium was inspired by the need to meet the highest level requirements of the European Union’s Regulation on Identification and Trust Services (eIDAS), but its impact is expected to be global as demand for highly secure digital solutions continues to rise.
“Adobe has a long history of successfully helping to establish and drive the adoption of open standards,” said Melissa Webster, vice president of content and digital media technologies, IDC. “An open standard focused on cloud-based digital signatures will not only help companies save time and resources, but ultimately move an entire industry forward with best practices that benefit all.”
In addition to Adobe, initial Cloud Signature Consortium members, which span EU cloud-based digital signature providers, trust services providers, academics and standards and security focused organizations, include:
Asseco Data Systems – Poland
Bundesdruckerei / D-Trust – Germany
Cryptolog / Universign – France
Docapost / Certinomis – France
InfoCert – Italy
Intarsys Consulting – Germany
Intesi Group – Italy
Izenpe – Spain
Safelayer – Spain
SwissSign – Switzerland
Graz University of Technology – Austria
Unibridge – Norway
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April 26, 2016 — Adobe today unveiled the first integration between Adobe Sign and Adobe Marketing Cloud, eliminating the cost and frustration of manual, paper-based process for enrollment, onboarding and servicing across the customer journey.
Adobe Sign Integrated With Adobe Marketing Cloud
Adobe Sign (formerly Document Cloud eSign services) features an upgraded and modernized mobile app experience, and works seamlessly with Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms – a key part of Adobe Marketing Cloud – helping organizations to go completely digital with anything from credit card applications to government benefit forms or medical forms.
And building on widespread adoption in Europe, Adobe is rolling out new data centers and meeting the most stringent legal requirements in the EU, part of a global expansion that will continue through 2016.
Adobe also announced new Document Cloud storage integrations with Box and Microsoft OneDrive, which make it easier to access and work on PDF files from anywhere, as well as new features for Adobe Acrobat DC subscribers, delivering on the promise of ongoing innovation and value through Document Cloud.
“Every company and organization should be laser-focused on delivering the best customer experience possible, and the best experience does not involve paper,” said Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Media at Adobe. “Today we further strengthen the value that Adobe Document Cloud and Adobe Sign bring to our global customers as the only complete solution that transforms paper-based transactions into 100 percent digital workflows.”
“Talking to businesses and partners around Asia Pacific, I see a real sense of urgency around transforming customer experience by making it seamless, pain-free, and accessible across all devices and touchpoints,” said Michael Stoddart, Director of Digital Media, Adobe Asia Pacific. “In its annual predictions for 2016, IDC believes that by the end of the year, 60 percent of the top 1000 enterprises in APAC will have digital transformation (DX) at the center of their corporate strategy, with a majority even creating an independent position to oversee the DX strategy implementation. Adobe is working with businesses across the region to help them create points of differentiation by making their core processes more customer-centric.”
At the heart of Document Cloud is Acrobat DC, the world’s best PDF solution; Adobe Sign, the leading e-signature solution that allows anyone to electronically sign and send documents from any device; and powerful companion mobile apps. More than six billion digital and electronic signature transactions are processed through Document Cloud each year, including global businesses like AmerisourceBergen, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Verizon and businesses in Asia Pacific like Stratton, one of Australia’s largest car and asset finance brokers, which rely on Document Cloud and Adobe Sign for fast, secure and mobile e-signatures.
“At Royal Bank of Scotland, we put our customers’ experience first when rolling out new services to make their lives a little easier,” said Ankit Chhajer, Digital Lead – Customer Experience and Sales Innovation, Royal Bank of Scotland. “Building on our broad adoption of Adobe Marketing Cloud, we are now turning to Adobe Document Cloud and Adobe Sign to create an elegant, hassle free customer experience that rivals none other.”
“Electronic signatures have reduced paperwork turnaround time from days to minutes, helping sales consultants finalize financing quickly,” said Andrew Lawrence, Software Development Manager, stratton. “Technology has always been a way for us to set ourselves apart, and we expect the new integrations in Adobe Sign will offer critical business services that we can use to close deals faster.”
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Introducing Powerful New Capabilities with Adobe Sign
Adobe Sign is the fast, easy, secure way to bring trusted e-signatures to every organization and department including HR, sales, IT, legal and procurement, to name a few. New functionality includes:
Transforming digital experiences – The integration between Adobe Sign and Experience Manager Forms turns complex, form-based processes into simple, engaging, mobile-optimized digital experiences across the entire customer journey. This includes how a person discovers the right form that they need, fills it out easily and successfully on any device, electronically signs it, and gets status updates once it is submitted. Using the integration between Adobe Sign and Adobe Marketing Cloud, organizations can provide responsive, adaptive experiences, enable personalization to continually improve the user experience with Adobe Target, and analyze and optimize performance with Adobe Analytics. Government, financial services and healthcare are just a few of the industries that will benefit from this service.
Furthering global e-signature and digital signature adoption – Building on widespread adoption in Europe, and as part of a global rollout, new data centers are now live in the EU. With a secure, standards-based approach, Adobe Sign meets the most stringent legal requirements so European organizations can go digital in compliance with eIDAS, the new EU signature regulation set to take effect in July 2016.
Delivering enhanced mobile signing – Sending, tracking and managing documents on tablets and smartphones is now easier than ever with the Adobe Sign app for iOS and Android (formerly Adobe eSign Manager DC). An updated dashboard and improved send for signature workflow enable users to be even more productive on any device.
Adobe is focused on enabling people to use Document Cloud with solutions they already use as part of their day-to-day work. Document Cloud already offers integrations with industry leaders like Apttus, Dropbox, Salesforce, Workday, and more. Adobe today is unveiling integrations with best-in-class cloud storage providers Box and Microsoft, along with new and expanded Adobe Sign integrations that span key business solutions and workflows.
Box – New offerings integrate Acrobat DC, Acrobat Reader and Adobe Sign with Box to simplify document workflows, as well as e-signature processes for enterprises. Whether users start from Box or Adobe, with just a few clicks they will be able to view and edit PDFs without any downloading, and ensure that the latest version is automatically secured in Box. Additionally, users can open Box files directly in Adobe Sign to provide an electronic signature on important contracts and paperwork, centralizing all updates in Box and streamlining the approval process.
Microsoft OneDrive – New integration with Acrobat DC, Acrobat Reader and Microsoft OneDrive allows organizations to access and work on PDF files stored in OneDrive directly from within the Adobe apps. With a few clicks in Acrobat on the desktop, users can view and work on PDF files stored in OneDrive while ensuring documents always remain synced. In addition, iOS users can access PDFs in OneDrive from the Acrobat Reader mobile app via the universal document picker, enabling them to work with PDF files anywhere.
Salesforce – The latest release of Adobe Sign significantly improves a user’s experience. Expected to be available in beta in May 2016, the update features the enhanced Salesforce Lightning user experience across any device, plus support for customizing the app with the drag-and-drop interface of Salesforce Lightning Components—while also providing compelling new features like signing groups and hybrid signing order. SteelBrick, recently acquired by Salesforce, also has an existing integration with Adobe Sign for helping speed the Configure Price Quote (CPQ) process.
Adobe Sign Ecosystem Momentum – Many new and updated integrations significantly expand the Adobe Sign ecosystem across common enterprise solutions—such as business process automation, contract lifecycle management and enterprise resource planning—and include Advanced Software Concepts (ASC), Buildium, McKesson Contract Manager, Namely, Oracle, SciQuest, SpringCM, and ThinkSmart.
Ongoing Innovation with Subscription to Acrobat DC
At the heart of Document Cloud, a subscription to Acrobat DC delivers instant access to new features and enhancements as soon as they’re available. Today, Adobe introduced:
Updated tools for everyday use – Modernized commenting and annotation tools are now fully updated with an intuitive, touch-friendly interface that makes it easier than ever to give and get fast, clear feedback; a highlighter pen can now mark up scanned documents without the need for optical character recognition (OCR); and paper-to-digital workflows like scanning are now optimized to deliver the best results.
Unrivaled accessibility – Adobe is adding critical menu and dialog updates to enhance the experience for users with visual impairments who rely on Acrobat DC to work with PDFs. The Home view and Save As options can now be read aloud by screen readers for greater accessibility.
Streamlined deployment – Adobe team and enterprise customers can now deploy and update Acrobat DC with Creative Cloud apps using the Adobe Creative Cloud packager.
Adobe Sign Pricing and Availability
The new Adobe Sign capabilities are expected to be available to customers in May 2016. Find out more.
The new Acrobat features will be automatically available to subscribers of Acrobat DC in May 2016. Find out more.
The ability to add a Box account to Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader on desktop is expected by the end of May 2016. The ability for Acrobat Reader mobile users on iPhone and iPad to select Box as their preferred cloud service from the iOS document picker is expected by the end of June 2016. Initial access to Acrobat DC and Adobe Sign from the Box website is expected by the end of May 2016, with deeper integration expected by Fall 2016.
The ability to add a OneDrive account to Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader on desktop, and the ability for Acrobat Reader mobile users on iPhone and iPad to select OneDrive as their preferred cloud storage provider from the iOS universal document picker, is expected by the end of June 2016.
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 5, 2016 —A world-class lineup of international and local creative industry leaders are set to take the stage at Adobe MAKE IT, which takes place in Sydney on 5 May 2016 and at the same time will be live streamed across APAC to countries including India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Now in its second year, Adobe’s regional creativity conference will see industry pioneers such as Erik Johansson, digital artist and creator of the Photoshop Live – Street Retouch Prank and Jason Little, Creative Director, For The People, a Sydney-based design start-up, discuss trends and challenges facing the industry, including overcoming “failure” and balancing the commercial with the creative.
“The creative sector is going through an unprecedented time of change, driven by the explosion in demand for amazing digital experiences as companies and institutions strive to connect with their audiences across digital devices ” said Marta DeBellis, Vice President Marketing Asia Pacific for Adobe. “This is the experience era, and creatives are at the heart of it. It’s a time of opportunity, but also of challenge for this group, and Adobe continues to provide leadership through technology, services, training and community to help creative professionals navigate and succeed in this new landscape.”
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Last year, over 500 industry professionals attended the inaugural conference hosted by Adobe to celebrate creativity and the technology that enables it. This year, Adobe MAKE IT promises to continue to challenge, educate and inspire more than 1000 of Australia’s designers, developers, marketers and creative professionals, plus an extended online audience across Asia.
“MAKE IT will bring together the brightest creatives from Australia and all over the world. This event represents the best of what the creative industry has to offer, and I’m looking forward to being part of the action!” said Erik Johansson, MAKE IT speaker.
Other speakers said that peer-to-peer collaboration and best-practice sharing is critical to staying abreast of the latest skills, techniques and technology during this era of change and transformation.
Julieanne Kost, Adobe’s Principal Digital Imaging Evangelist and Paul Burnett, Principal APAC Evangelist for Creative Cloud will also join this year’s lineup of speakers to discuss the future of design/web and digital imaging. The event will be opened by Adobe APAC President, Paul Robson.
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March 23, 2016 – The Adobe Summit 2016 kicked off today. This is Adobe’s annual digital marketing conference in the U.S., showcasing innovations across Adobe Marketing Cloud. Adobe Summit is the leading industry event focused on the future of marketing and business transformation and attracted a record-breaking 10,000 attendees.
Starring Adobe’s most breakthrough technical achievements in marketing, the conference will also feature Oscar-award winning actor and director George Clooney, “Silicon Valley” star Thomas Middledich, actor and singer Donny Osmond and World Champion soccer player Abby Wambach, who will address how their own personal brands are evolving in today’s digital world.
Executives from Cirque de Soleil, Comedy Central, Mattel, McDonald’s and Royal Bank of Scotland are among hundreds of brands speaking about how they’re at the forefront of the next big industry wave: the “Experience Business” wave.
Adobe Summit 2016: Experience Business
The third wave of enterprise software is upon us – and it’s reinventing how products and services are created, delivered and marketed. First came the “back-office” wave, with software solutions for in-house processes like inventory control, payroll and accounting. Then came the “front-office” wave, which helped firms streamline their data to better interact with customers. With both waves, early-adopters of enterprise software enjoyed a significant advantage over rivals. Today, we find ourselves in the early stages of a third wave.
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The flood of information and opportunity unleashed by the digital revolution has raised customer expectations to unprecedented levels. There’s only one way for brands to thrive in this new environment: become an Experience Business. Companies have to create a personalized, compelling customer experience at every link of the relationship, from websites and mobile apps to retail environments.
At Summit, Adobe unveiled the next generation Adobe Marketing Cloud to drive the Experience Business. The company unveiled Adobe Cloud Platform enhancements, including advancements to its partner and developer program. A new Adobe Marketing Cloud Device Co-op is expected to link up to 1.2 billion devices.
A new Over-the-Top (OTT) offering makes it easy for TV networks and pay-TV providers to bring more personalized TV and ad experiences directly to consumers via Apple TV, Microsoft Xbox, Roku and other connected devices. The company also introduced new data science capabilities that enable brands to predict and deliver the right experience on the web, in apps, and at the point of sale at the right moment across any device.
“Every company should be obsessed with the quality of the experiences they are delivering to their customers,” said Brad Rencher, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Marketing Business at Adobe. “Adobe is laser-focused on enabling our customers to create consistent, personalized stand-out experiences for their customers.”
Adobe Cloud Platform
Advancements to the Adobe Cloud Platform include updates to Adobe Exchange, which hosts hundreds of apps and integrations such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, DemandBase, Acxiom, and BrightEdge, and enable partners to extend the functionality of Adobe Marketing Cloud. The launch of Adobe.io, Adobe’s new developer portal, enables developers to download the Adobe Marketing Cloud software development kit (SDK) and easily access application program interface (API) routines and protocols.
New Adobe Certified Metrics, built on the Adobe Cloud Platform and powered by Adobe Analytics, offer standardized digital census data for more accurate measurement of digital audiences. By leveraging Adobe Certified Metrics, measurement partners, such as comScore, announced today, and Nielsen, can provide a complete view of total audience engagement across TV and digital to increase ad revenue opportunities.
With Adobe data, cable networks, pay-TV service providers and digital publishers can now accurately measure audiences and monetize their content across all screens – including linear TV, DVR, video-on-demand, desktops, smartphones, tablets, game consoles and over-the-top connected devices.
Cross-Device Coop & Mobile
Adobe announced the Adobe Marketing Cloud Device Co-op, a network that will enable the world’s biggest brands to work together to better identify consumers as they move from one digital device to another — all while adhering to the highest standards of privacy and transparency. The Co-op will empower participating brands to deliver more personalized consumer experiences across devices and applications at massive scale.
Adobe also unveiled a series of innovations in Mobile Marketing. Deeper integration of Adobe Experience Manager Mobile with Apache Cordova helps customers build mobile-app extensions to create richer app experiences. Adobe Experience Manager Mobile simplifies the process of building and managing visually appealing enterprise apps that are as easy to use as consumer apps. Several technology partners also announced today that they are extending their support of Adobe Experience Manager to include mobile.
Mobile Core Services now offers tools for brands to optimize the way they interact with users. Adobe’s new deep linking capability within Adobe Marketing Cloud allows brands to send content or promotional offers that will take the customer directly to the appropriate page within the app itself, if it’s installed, eliminating multiple steps and providing a better consumer experience.
New OTT Offering
Adobe unveiled new capabilities in Adobe Primetime that extend the solution to OTT platforms and make it easy for TV networks and pay-TV providers to deliver more personalized TV and ad experiences directly to consumers across Apple TV, Microsoft Xbox, Roku and other connected devices. Through the integration with Adobe’s digital marketing solutions, content providers can now acquire, engage and monetize audiences.
Data Science & Sneaks
Adobe also announced a series of new data science capabilities including Smart Tags, a TV Recommendation Engine, Automated Insight for Advertising, and email optimizations through Predictive Subject Lines. These capabilities further advance the use of the power of algorithms. The new algorithms simplify the process of extracting insights from billions of data points to help marketers make better business decisions and benefit from recommendations and predictions they didn’t even know existed.
Adobe will also be offering several “Sneaks” at Adobe Summit — previews of groundbreaking ideas and technologies percolating inside Adobe labs. One such Sneak: an early look at Adobe Experience Design CC paired with Adobe Experience Manager Mobile to allow designers to take UX designs of mobile apps to production.
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