Moderator: We will be starting within the hour.

Peter Ryce & Dean Pianta: Looking forward to answering all your questions.

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Moderator: Good Afternoon and welcome to Viewpoint! Today we have Peter Ryce, Connect Evangelist, and Dean Pianta, Government Solutions Engineer, here to talk to use about "Ironclad Web Conferencing from Adobe". Let's get started!

Peter Ryce & Dean Pianta: Thanks everyone for joining today. Our collaboration & eLearning product enjoys widespread adoption. This product emphasizes the overall Adobe message of engagement and putting the person / citizen back in the picture. It is all about engaging users and we'll explain more as we go. We look forward to all of your questions (especially government ones) - let's get started.

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Boca Raton, Fla.: Is this web conferencing feature practical in terms of cost effectiveness, ease of technical functionality for a smaller size company without IT support?

Peter Ryce: Absolutely! Smaller organizations may want to start with a low cost or free web conferencing option, like Adobe's ConnectNow available at acrobat.com. With ConnectNow you can have rich web conferencing for up to three people for free. As company size and needs grow, Adobe offers a range of web conferencing offerings using the Connect Pro solution - everything from Pay-Per-Use and monthly plans, through to annual agreements to satisfy hundreds of users in large meetings. All of these can be done through the Adobe Hosted servers, eliminating the need for any IT support.

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Arlington, Va.: How is Adobe Connect Pro different than a conferencing system like WebEx?

Dean Pianta: There are a couple key factors that differentiate Connect Pro from WebEx. (1) Because our client software is based on Flash, 98% of computers connected to the Internet already have everything they need to collaborate online. In terms of cost, the deployment and maintenance of a thick client for WebEx is much, much greater. In terms of frustration, the inability to get into a meeting based on not being able to install the client typically means a meeting is 15 minutes late to start - if it starts at all. (2) Another key differentiator is that our server can be installed "on-premise" - meaning you don't have a link back to the vendor and your meetings are private / secure. This is also a much better scenario for bandwidth; reducing long haul connections back to the vendor hosting site. (3) There are some Government specific differentiators as well such as 508 Accessibility being stronger with Connect Pro and the fact that Connect Pro can be hosted in a FISMA compliant facility outside Washington D.C. There are other factors - but this hits 4 issues that matter to customers.

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Jawa Barat, Indonesia: What is the next step for Adobe to compete in this era of globalization?

Peter Ryce: More and more companies have realized that they need to work closely with their counterparts in other countries, but have been hindered by the high-cost of travel, and the impact on families. Using Connect Pro, many organizations have been able to create virtual teams that include members from around the globe - letting these teams meet as often as they need, sharing presentations, collaborating on applications, and viewing live or pre-recorded video. For example Siemens Medical in Germany use Connect Pro to meet with their manufacturing facility in China - reviewing 3D CAD drawings, and being able to see live video of the factory in action. In addition, Adobe has localized Connect Pro into eleven different languages, allowing organizations to have meetings in any of these languages.

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Washington, D.C.: How long would it take to get Adobe Connect Pro integrated into my company?

Dean Pianta: The install of Adobe Connect Pro is 20 minutes. Most people laugh at that after installing similar type products and it taking days. The "integration" part of your question is where the answer gets tougher explain because "integration" is a big word. Some forms of integration / the time it takes to set them include: LDAP / Active Directory - 20 minutes; Single Sign On - 1 or 2 hours depending on the approach and what we're using as the access manager; Integration into Outlook - quick, push an MSI object to end users; Lotus Notes - also quick, push it out to end users; etc.

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New York, N.Y.: I hate business travel, however my bosses feel that "face-to-face" meetings create better results. Do you have any information that I can use to combat this argument?

Peter Ryce: Face-to-face meetings are a great way to build social acceptance and trust, and may be the right thing for your first meeting with someone you don't know. However, many people feel that sharing a web camera provides much of the same benefit. And if you need to have more than one meeting, the travel cost, and productivity time lost is prohibitive. What happens is that you actually meet less often than if you could meet without having to travel - and are ultimately less successful.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Does Adobe Connect Pro require specialization to meet government compliance?

Dean Pianta: I take your question to mean, "what has Adobe done to make it meet government requirements?" The answer involves a focus on security & compliance. In terms of security, many of our installations (DISA, DHS, PTO, NIH, etc.) leverage SSL - but in a FIPS 140-2 compliant manner (approved crypto algorithms). Also within the security realm, authentication takes many forms and the DoD typically uses CAC / PKI on the front end to get to Connect Pro. In terms of compliance - we are approved on FIPS desktops - and we've installed the server on numerous "lock-down" operating system configurations (NSA, DoD, Federal STIGs). The final compliance piece to note is for 508 Accessibility. We are continually pushing the envelope on accessibility and today we're happy to say we've been approved by several government agencies such as DHS, HHS, and PTO. I do not want to mislead anyone into thinking we are fully compliant in terms of 508; however, we have proven to be the most accessible with features / best practices guides in very competitive selection processes.

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Boston, Mass.: Does Adobe Connect Pro support video conferencing?

Peter Ryce: Yes, you can easily share your web camera, or a camcorder connected to your computer. With inexpensive USB adaptors you can add virtually any video source, including being able to connect to existing "hardware-based" video conferencing systems, like Polycom or Tandberg. You can share any number of cameras simultaneously, but you need to be somewhat sensitive to bandwidth when you get too many. We do provide a number of controls to let you adjust bandwidth to ensure it works for different situations.

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Bethesda, Md.: I work for a government agency and would like to look into using Adobe Connect Pro. Do you have any success stories integrating a government agency with Connect Pro?

Dean Pianta: We have success / reference accounts across Federal Government, Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and State & Local. You can find published case studies on our government specific website: (http://www.adobe.com/government/solutions/training_collaboration/ ) We're also happy to discuss deep integration with accounts like NIH, DISA, or HHS in a 1-on-1 setting.

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Atlanta, Ga.: Does Adobe Connect Pro support Webinars? Or is this more of a small group meeting tool?

Dean Pianta: Time and time again, the thing that CIOs walk away with is the fact that Connect Pro can be used in so many ways. We support use cases for larger Webinars (1000+ participants), smaller collaboration efforts, and everything in-between. But beyond just a sizing perspective, our "persistent" meetings rooms and eLearning capabilities open up use cases such as disaster recovery and COOP. Many customers purchase our product for its ability to author, publish, and host standards based (SCORM / AICC) learning objects. The OnDemand and Virtual Classrooms give a blended solution for formal and informal learning. Many use cases come out of this comprehensive and versatile solution.

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San Fransico, Calif.: What features does Adobe Connect Pro offer to business users?

Peter Ryce: Business users really like the easy access to meetings. Since everyone is pressed for time these days, and more and more organizations are in locked-down environments, no one has time, or often the ability, to install applications in order to participate in meetings. With Flash player as the only requirement, users join the meeting in seconds. And they love our rich support for PowerPoint - allowing you to share presentations complete with their animations and hyperlinks. There's lots of other features like video, polls and recordings that help too.

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Tampa, Fla.: Can Connect Pro record meetings securely? Do you have any security certifications?

Dean Pianta: We can support the recording of meetings securely. We do this for agencies within the intelligence community as well as DoD and commercial accounts within the financial sector. Our certifications are not based purely on the recording aspect though; they apply to the whole solution. We have certifications like JITC, DITSCAP, etc. if that is what you mean.

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Baltimore, Md.: My office doesn't support Adobe presentation software - can we still utilize Connect Pro?

Peter Ryce: I'm not exactly sure which product is meant by "Adobe presentation software", but the only thing required to use Connect Pro is the Flash player and a browser. Since Flash is used for so many things these days - everything from the home page of GM, to the how you watch YouTube videos, it's rare to find an organization that doesn't have it already installed. According to independent surveys, Flash Player is on 98.7% of computers connected to the internet. This should give you all you need to start using Connect Pro - without any additional software to install.

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Austin, Tex.: Do you offer any customization?

Dean Pianta: We have two main types of customization: branding and what I consider product extensibility. In terms of branding, you can change logos, login page, branding on the portal, and colors schemes within the meeting experience - all out of the box. More extensive customizations can be done with coding efforts leveraging an XML API. From an extensibility standpoint, we can customize reporting, authentication, single sign-on, and integration into legacy systems.

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Alexandria, Va.: What type of capabilities do I need on my machine to be able to use Connect Pro?

Peter Ryce: Your machine simply needs an internet connection, a browser, and Flash Player. This allows it to work on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux computers. We even work on a number of mobile phones, and the Playstation 3! A full list of system requirements can be found on our website. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/systemreqs/

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New York, N.Y.: What type of real-time support do you offer if I am using Connect Pro to conference with a client and run into problems?

Dean Pianta: There are a couple levels of support based on how you license the product and to what level. At the highest level, you have a dedicated technical account manager that is knowledgeable on your enterprise and key meetings. Often these TAMs are in a standby mode for important events. There is obviously 24x7 support and other avenues that our preferred partners support. We welcome a conversation to better understand what would work best for you.

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Los Angeles, Calif.: What do you think the next "cool thing" will be in the world of Web conferencing? Is Adobe on the forefront of this technology?

Dean Pianta: I'll assume we've got an NDA in place :) But seriously, there are a couple fronts that we see in the overall collaboration space. I'm sure everyone sees different channels being offered (Twitter, Blogging, Discussion Forums, IM, Presence & Awareness, etc.). These are fantastic directions that we need wrap into a single "unified collaboration" capability - all provisioned from a single administration point. Equally as important is the idea of meta-data tagging all of the knowledge being created. In this sense, we need to move up from the singular experience of a meeting or IM - and evolve to the comprehensive understanding of collaboration. With this we will better be able to capture the knowledge that was "collaborated" over time. Lastly, I'll promote the notion of a profile for users that has been ignored by many vendors today. At the end of the day we need to be able to search and connect people to information. This is what keeps us excited about the future of collaboration.

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Seattle, Wash.: What sets Adobe Connect Pro apart from the competition?

Peter Ryce: Connect Pro has a number of unique capabilities. The first, is that it only requires Flash Player for participants - there's no need to install Active-X controls, or Java, or Java applets etc. The second is the richness of our meetings - you can easily share your screen, share videos, documents, files, conduct polls, and more. And Connect Pro is incredibly open - we have APIs and SDKs that allow organizations to do everything from integrate Connect Pro with their LDAP, or provide single-sign-on through standard authentication systems - through to allowing any of the million-plus Flash developers in the world to extend the functionality of the meetings. Organizations can extend the meeting interface with custom features - like interactive maps or real-time dashboards that can be seen by everyone.

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Great Falls, Va.: Do you offer demos that I can test out for the different stakeholders in my company?

Peter Ryce: Yes! You can easily sign up for a free 30 day trial on our site.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/trial/

You will be provided with a fully functional hosted account that will let you add users who can have full rights, you can all hold meetings, view reports, and try every other aspect of the product. If you'd like to try deploying a Connect Pro Enterprise server on your own network - please contact us - we'd be happy to set you up.

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Columbus, Ohio: How do I go about integrating Adobe Connect Pro into my business?

Dean Pianta: Please see our previous response to the question "How long would it take to get Adobe Connect Pro integrated into my company?" as it applies equally to your question.

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Arlington, Va.: Can you go into more detail about the security and network infrastructure of Connect Pro?

Dean Pianta: It is hard to really discuss detail at the security & network infrastructure level. But in general, customers with an on-premise license drop these behind their firewall for security reasons. They have the option of pulling users from internal or external to their agency / company. All traffic can be sent over a single port (80 or 443 for secure). You can drop a load balancer / SSL device like F5 BigIP and cluster 2 or more Connect Pro servers. Once again, many details arise here and I'd need to know more before jumping one level lower.

For more information, please contact Adobe at 888-649-2990 or check out security at this site:

http://adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/security/

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Wilmington, De.: What kind of lead time should I assume for integrating with my mid-sized internet based company?

Dean Pianta: The answer here is highly dependent on what you mean by integration. In general, setting up a Connect Server on-premise can take as little as an hour. As we start to add points of integration (LDAP, SSO, LMS, etc.) the schedule is increased. Many of integrations come out of the box - so unless you are doing something out of the ordinary, I would scope a 1-week effort to build, test, and deploy this type of solution.

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Newark, N.J.: Do you think that Connect Pro can completely replace conferences and business travel? Are there any disadvantages to connect pro users should be aware of?

Peter Ryce: No, there are certain circumstances where travel is needed for a variety of tangible and intangible reasons. At a conference for example you might need to wander a tradeshow floor to take in all the offerings by multiple vendors. However if you could even replace ? or 1/3 of your current travel you'd probably find huge savings in both money and time. For example, Adobe did an internal study of our 7000 employees of the past two years. We were saw a direct correlation between the travel dollars being spent per employee and the amount of Connect Meeting usage. We were able to reduce the travel budget by nearly $1000 per employee annually - resulting in over $10,000,000 savings in two years. The only disadvantage is that you won't be racking up those air-miles quite as quickly. ;-)

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Arlington, Va.: Does Connect Pro meet Government regulations and standards for security?

Dean Pianta: Yes, Adobe has spent over 5 years building up our "security strength" so that we could sell to Government customers. The first was actually a Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) certification for the Army. Today, Connect Pro is a part of many agencies adhering to Federal Regulations. The flash client is installed on FIPS desktops, the encryption of data in motion is secured with FIPS 140-2 compliant algorithms (more a function of the SSL device), the server has been installed and tested on locked-down operating systems (DoD STIG, NSA STIG, NIST STIG, etc.).

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Pittsburgh, Pa.: Can connect pro help me measure efficiency of my telecommute workforce?

Dean Pianta: It can - and what I like about this answer is that it draws upon functionality from one of our preferred partners. Adobe has worked very hard to grow a partner "eco-system" for reasons just like this. The extensibility of the product allowed a company called Refined Data to build a module that measures savings in terms of dollars and CO2 savings. The module is called "footprints." The best part of footprints is that not only does it calculate savings on a per meeting basis, but it tracks usage over time and allows you to produce reports for monthly, weekly usage and savings. Great analytics - Google "footprints" and Connect Pro and you'll find a wealth of information.

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Washington, D.C.: What happens if I am trying to conference with someone who cannot support Adobe Flash player? Is there any way to still use Connect pro?

Peter Ryce: Well, admittedly this would be extremely rare - according to independent surveys Flash Player is already on over 98.7% of all connected computers - far more deployed than any other software technology - including Microsoft Windows. In fact, Connect Pro has been successful within most areas of the government and military because it already meets the strictest security requirements and is deployed on most government issued systems. However if Flash Player was not present, you would not be able to join a meeting until you installed it - luckily the installation process only takes seconds (or perhaps a couple of minutes if you are on a modem).

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Arlington, Va.: Does recording a meeting take up a lot of room on the disk? Is there file compression that is handled by the software?

Peter Ryce: Our recording technology is different from any other vendor. When we record a meeting we don't just capture a video of what happened, and all the pixels that moved. Instead, we capture the events that took place - for example if someone puts a message in the chat, we capture the text of the message - not a video of the chat window. The benefit is that our recordings are incredibly efficient - storing text takes up a lot less room than video. However if you do share video, or your webcamera, or your screen (which is really just another type of video) we do try to compress it. When you upload PowerPoint files to share, we actually convert them to lightweight Flash files (a few kbs each) and deliver those instead of using hundreds of kbs to screen share those same slides. So depending on what you do in your meeting, the recordings can be extremely small - for chat, slides, notes, polling, etc., or they can be larger if you share a lot of video or screen sharing. I find that my recordings with a lot of screen sharing use about 1Mb/Min. But meetings without video are only a few kbs/Min.

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Arlington, Va.: How much disk space does Connect Pro take up?

Dean Pianta: In terms of the server product, I take your question at 2 levels, (1) to simply install, and (2) over time given growth. The system requirements for an install can be reviewed at this link:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/systemreqs/#proserver

The overall growth is highly dependent on usage. For instance, the archiving of meetings with heavy use of video and screen sharing is much, much different than simply running chat sessions. Many of our large scale customers take advantage of a SAN / NAS to help with the actual dynamics. From my personal experience, a good rule of thumb is to start with 500 gigs for 100 users and expect to generate 100 gigs per year. That's 5 gigs per user to start and 1/gig generated per year. If forced recordings are on, then you may want to double or triple the growth estimate depending on anticipated meeting usage.

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Newark, NJ: Could I meet with my lawyer through a web conference? Close on my house? Sign a contract? How secure is it?

Dean Pianta: I do not know of anyone showing up to traffic court to take care of a speeding ticket via Connect Pro. However, yes, the product is used in some of the most secure environments related to national security. The larger question is really outside the scope of Connect Pro - and relates to whether or not the process of closing a house can be done electronically; does the bank have a fully electronic process and leverage digital signatures? If the answer is yes, then your answer is yes. The specifics of court complicate the real answer somewhat - but more and more courts (Federal Justice Courts) are leveraging online collaboration.

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Colorado Springs, CO: How will our lives -- professional and personal -- change because of Connect Pro?

Peter Ryce: I can tell you from personal experience that if you travel regularly - you'll get to see you family more often. I'm able to replace at least half of my meetings that would have involved travel with Connect Pro meetings. This week alone I've met with people from the UK, India, Australia, Canada, and all over the US (I'm based in San Jose, CA) - all from the comfort of my office, or even my home office in some cases. I'm able to solve customer problems much more quickly - inviting them to meet with me on a moment's notice, and I can attend internal meetings no matter where they occur. It's up to you how you will use all that extra time. ;-)

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Arlington, Va.: Do you see web conferencing making the leap to replacing the vast majority of business travel in the near future?

Dean Pianta: I would actually say yes in the near future based on the economic downturn and fiscally constrained environment we now live in. Traditional school house training is moving online; Corporate off-sites are moving online; Townhall meetings are moving online. Being in sales, I know there is a time and a place to meet face-to-face. But many meetings are more efficient and save money / environment by not traveling. I think we will feel this over the next year and like all things, relax and the pendulum will swing back towards in person meetings at some point after that. Those that see it as a strategic differentiator will see the value and stay online.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Does Adobe address compliance and mandatory federal regulations, like HIPAA?

Dean Pianta: Yes, Adobe has a vertical aligned towards the public sector for this very reason. Based on selling & implementing Connect Pro at Federal Civilian agencies (OMB, HHS, DHS, etc.), DoD Agencies (Army, Navy, DISA, etc.) and even within the Intelligence Community, Adobe has listened and brought compliance issues back to product engineering so that we could address these critical issues. For instance, our first opportunity with the Army allowed us to seek a Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) certification and exposed the solution to DoD STIGs. As we encountered 508 accessibility issues early on with Federal Highway Administration or the Patent and Trade Office, we quickly advanced the product. Through many Connect Pro solutions you'll find an ability to offer FISMA compliant hosting or FIPS compliance at the desktop, server, and encryption. With our latest product version, Connect Pro has a set of capabilities for "compliance and control" that seek to address and tailor the solution to meet something like HIPAA or SOX. It should be noted that these features are all offered "out of the box" - further customizations are possible to meet an even wider range of compliance mandates.

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Seattle, Wash.: What deployment options does Adobe offer?

Dean Pianta: There are 3 main deployment options offered today for Connect Pro. The first is an on-premise solution where a customer can install and host the product themselves. No "phone home" links are required and this is a very common deployment method throughout government. A second solution leverages Adobe's hosting facility and several licensing options essentially allow you to benefit from our service. A third and final deployment configuration, specifically set for government, is one where Connect Pro is setup in a FISMA compliant hosting facility (VA based) and managed by a preferred partner.

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San Francisco, Calif.: Love the concept. But here's the challenge: End-users are typically the people who really recognize and understand the potential cost and productivity savings on products like this. But they often can't get upper management and expense authorizers to see it. Do you have any magic presentation points or strategies for selling upper management and expense authorizers on this? Please answer for both government and corporate environments if you can.

Dean Pianta: Government: So magic aside, we typically establish value in one of two ways. The first is metric driven where we share adoption rates (there is only value when people use the software!), meeting metrics, travel dollars saved over time, even CO2 saved over time. We have calculators and partner solutions built into the product to keep analytics. In this way, a trial quickly establishes data to support value. A second path towards establishing the value of Connect Pro is related to it's ability to offer such a wide range of solutions to an organization. Because the product is multi-purpose, after 6 months of using the product for meetings it is enlightening to see where users have taken the solution; which problems they've addressed with real-time and / or on-demand solutions. So a walk through of use cases is always valuable in saying, "instead of buying a second tool to do X, Y, or Z - just use Connect Pro." As far as what it does beyond basic web conferencing - think everything from an e-Townhall event, to a director's message to the field, to time-sensitive targeting for the Army, to even full blow disaster & recovery / COOP strategies.

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Columbus, Ohio: Do you have plans to expand the capacity?

Peter Ryce: Adobe is constantly expanding our capacity. The growth of Connect Pro has been phenomenal, and in the past year we've rolled out four new hosted data centers - more than doubling our previous capacity - and we have plans for more. However many of our customers choose to purchase licensed copies of the Connect Pro server and to deploy them on their own premises. These customers can expand their own capacity at any time by adding new servers to their own environment.

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Chapel Hill, N.C.: I enjoy using Adobe's tool, but the one downside is the long start-up times. What has been done to make this tool efficient and easy to use?

Peter Ryce: Actually Connect Pro has one of the fastest start-up times of any web conferencing application. Most users are able to join a meeting in less than one minute, as there is no client to download - only the Flash player is needed. Moderator: That is all the time we have for today. Thank you much for joining us.

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Peter Ryce: Thanks for all the great questions today! I hope we were able to cover them all. However if you still have questions, or would like to learn more about how Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro can help your organization save money, reduce travel, and become more productive - please visit our website and sign up for a free trial. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/

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