Adobe Connect Battlecard

ADOBE CONNECT1 OVERVIEW

conditions, and aggressive license audit programs impair buyers otherwise favorable perceptions of Adobe.5

Adobe is an established player in providing multi-channel digital media tools and marketing solutions. Microsoft
LiveMeeting and Lync 2010 (Server and Online) face competition from Adobe Connect2, Adobes Flash-based web
conferencing solution.
This battlecard addresses the Hosted version of Adobe Connect in relation to Microsoft Lync Online.
Adobe has established a strong foothold in the education, government and defence sectors and, like Microsoft, is
ranked in the Leader segment of Gartners Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing.3
Adobe Connect consists of three modules: Adobe Connect for Web Meetings enables collaboration and
communication via online meetings; Adobe Connect for Webinars is designed for creating interactive online events;
and Adobe Connect for eLearning supports virtual classes and interactive education and training in business and
educational institutions.

ADOBE CONNECT STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Strengths
Ubiquity of the Flash Player the Flash player is installed on an estimated 97% of PCs accessing the internet4,
and therefore most users arent required to download additional plug-ins to join Adobe Connect meetings,
enabling even users in locked down IT environments to participate.
Architecture Adobe Connects flexible and extensible architecture makes it possible to meet a range of
different use cases, and a broad Flex developer network enables customization according to customer needs.
Support for multiple platforms Adobe Connect supports Windows, Mac, Linux, and mobile devices running
Android, iOS and BlackBerry operating systems.
Maximization of investment Adobe Connect allows for integration with existing IT infrastructure and video
telephony devices. Offers single solution on a standard platform for web-meetings, eLearning, and webinars.
Customization creation of custom persistent URLs, presentation layouts and branding to reinforce
organizations messaging and branding

Weaknesses
Complex strategy Adobes strategy for cross platform ubiquity is complex, involving three distinct runtime
environments: HTML5, Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and Flash. AIR is constrained to app distribution and
cannot replace Flash in a browser.
Application integration Adobe faces challenges from competitors, including Microsoft, offering
collaboration products integrated with business applications such as Lync Online and Office 365. Adobe
Connect doesnt allow for any integration with the Microsoft Office Suite, apart from Outlook, via a plug-in.
Pricing Adobe is under pressure from enterprise customers to make its licensing and pricing models more
transparent, and to offer more competitive pricing to enterprise customers.5
Security vulnerabilities Adobe Flash has been targeted by a number of advanced potential security exploits
requiring numerous product updates and emergency patches. E.g. Nine Flash Player updates in 1H 2012.6

ADOBE CONNECT POSITIONING AND FEATURES

Licensing
Hosted licenses are sold on an annual subscription basis, with renewal on the anniversary.
Adobe offers 2 main enterprise licensing options for Connect:
1. Named Host an agreed number of people get full access, allowing them to set up and host an unlimited
number of meetings.

Named Host accounts are individualized and may not be shared.

Number of attendees varies by license. Standard is 100, support for up to 1,500 attendees.
2. Concurrent Users a pool of seats is sold, which may be shared among employees. Price varies by volume.

Seats are allocated from the pool, with each person in a meeting session occupying a seat. The total
size of all meetings at any given time cannot exceed the number of seats purchased.

Deployment and Management

Adobe offers 3 deployment models: hosted; on-premise; and as a managed service.
1. Hosted allows for an immediate start, requiring a web browser, Flash and an internet connection.
Advantages include: a low initial investment; reliable, redundant system architecture and highbandwidth, tier 1 hosting; and maintenance and support during the annual subscription.
2. On-premise gives customers control of their environment, deploying Adobe Connect behind the
firewall and integrating the product with existing IT infrastructure. Advantages include: integration with
existing servers and applications, such as VoIP, LDAP directory server, Jabber, and Microsoft SQL Server;
customization and extension of Adobe Connect; and optimized performance using edge servers.
3. Managed service outsourced IT management (installation, upgrade and management), with the
added benefit of control, application monitoring, additional security options, and customization offered
by deployment on-prem. The managed service option offers: Federal Information Security Management
Act (FISMA)-compliant services, attractive to organizations in regulated industries, such as financial
services and government; and failover between geographically distributed data centers.
A plug-in is required for screen sharing in Adobe Connect. Separate plug-ins are available, enabling scheduling
and meeting invitations to be sent from Microsoft Outlook (Windows Only) and Lotus Notes (Win & Mac).
Developers can extend Adobe Connect through the Collaboration Builder software development kit (SDK),
which enables them to enhance web communication experiences through interactive applications.

Audio and Video Conferencing

Adobe Connect supports audio via phone, VoIP, or both.

Adobes Conferencing Service Provider partners provide fully integrated web, audio and video conferencing
services. Audio integration with Adobe Connect is available through Avaya, InterCall, MeetingOne and PGi.
Allows existing investments in videoconferencing (incl. Tandberg, Polycom, and PictureTel) to be leveraged
by integrating video telephony devices supporting SIP/H.264 with Adobe Connect (on-premise only).
Hosts may stream live audio/video broadcast directly into a meeting room.
Meetings may be recorded and edited for reuse on demand or for off-line distribution and viewing.

Go-to-market approach

Adobe Connect is sold to enterprise customers directly, and via partners such as InterCall, PGi, MeetingOne,
Emergent and Clarix Technologies. Adobe Connect is also available to individuals and small businesses
through the Adobe website (up to 9 hosts per account / 25 attendees).
Adobe is concentrating on growing enterprise sales by adding dedicated account managers for large accounts
and increasing the number of direct sales people.
Gartner reports that complicated product naming and packaging practices, inconsistent terms and

Mobile

Adobe Connect Mobile 1.7 enables users to attend and host meetings, webinars or virtual classrooms on iOS
devices, Android and Blackberry PlayBook. Adobe Connect Mobile also supports multi-user video
conferences with the device's camera; sharing of documents, and multimedia content with other attendees;
and collaboration using text chat and polls.
The Mobile application is available as a free download from the iTunes store, Google Play (Android) and
Blackberry App World.

Formerly known as Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro

Version 9 of Adobe Connect was announced in Q2 2012 and will be released in Q3 2012 (calendar)
Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing (Gartner, 2011)
4
Flash, Silverlight and the RIA Dilemma in a World of HTML5 (Gartner, 2012)
5
Vendor Rating: Adobe (Gartner, 2012)
6
http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html
2
3

June 2012

Microsoft Confidential. For internal use only. Do not distribute outside of Microsoft.

Adobe Connect Battlecard

LYNC VALUE PROPOSITIONS
Adobe Connect
Support across multiple platforms
Lync supports Windows and Mac as well as iOS,
Android, Windows Phone and Symbian mobile.
Participants may also attend using a free web client.
Users can connect to corporate/federated contacts
through IM, email, conferences or calls, although they
cant present or access video via mobile clients.

Lync has limited eLearning

capabilities.

Adobe Connect works across PC, Mac, Linux platforms

and Android, Blackberry and iOS (via AIR). AIR is a free
out-of-browser runtime container, primarily for Flash,
but also for HTML and JavaScript applications and
enables cross-platform application development.

Lync does not support iPad

or other non-Windows
mobile devices.

Integration with other productivity applications

Lync Online is highly secure and reliable; works with
existing Microsoft investments including Active
Directory, Exchange, SharePoint and Microsoft
management tools; and offers single sign-on and
password sync to simplify admin and lower TCO.
Lync Online also enables access to IM/P, meeting
scheduling, document sharing and collaboration from
within Office, Outlook, MS CRM, SharePoint and OWA,
versus Adobe Connect which is a standalone offering.

Separate plugins are required to enable users to share

desktops and to schedule, start, and join Adobe
Connect meetings from Microsoft Outlook (Windows)
and IBM Lotus Notes, and support is provided for use
of integrated address books for availability lookup.
Meeting hosts may view invitees and presence on
Microsoft Live Communications Server (LCS) and Office
Communications Server (OCS) and can initiate chat
conversations with LCS or OCS instant message users
from within Adobe Connect. There is no integration for
other components in the Office suite.

User experience

Lyncs single-client enables quick access to desktop

sharing, rich presence and collaboration (versus
launching a third-party client); and reduces need to
buy, manage and integrate third-party services by
using mobile productivity built into the Microsoft
platform. Lync offers seamless interoperability and a
consistent UI across multiple platforms with Office,
Outlook and SharePoint environments.

Adobe Connects layout is customizable and

presenters may arrange the individual display
component pods, including video, presentation, polls
and chat according to the purpose of the meeting or
training event.
An Adobe Connect plug-in is needed in order to share
any content from the desktop.
Adobe Connect functions within the browser with a
uniform interface on both PC and Mac.
Users are not able to initiate meetings from within any
Microsoft Office component, with the exception of
Outlook (via a plug-in).

HANDLING CUSTOMER OBJECTIONS

What conferencing features

does Lync offer is it a
suitable web-conferencing
application?

Lync is not suitable for

handling large events.

June 2012

Lync Online enables users to connect in ad-hoc and scheduled meetings via PCbased audio, video, and web conferencing. Lync Online supports an integrated
conferencing experience with a maximum meeting capacity of 250 users. Lync
Online provides for Lync-based audio conferencing capabilities.
Dial-in audio conferencing can be achieved through interoperability with thirdparty audio conferencing services. This enables an integrated experience for
scheduling and joining a Lync meeting from any phone; initiating a dial-out to a
phone number from within the Lync client; and control of phone end-points from
the Lync client.
Lync Online enables users to connect via high quality video sessions and active
speaker video is available for multiparty sessions. Users can easily schedule an
online meeting with video or seamlessly escalate an IM session to a video call.
Lync Online also offers PC-to-PC and multiparty data sharing capabilities
including desktop sharing, application sharing, PowerPoint presentation,
whiteboarding, annotations and polling tools.
Lync Online is currently limited to 250 conference participants although the
roadmap provides allowance for up to 1,000 participants. Where high capacity
meetings are required, customers may engage Microsoft partners, such as ON24,

The Lync Web client offers

restricted functionality.

Adobe Connect vs. Lync Online Pricing Comparison

Adobe Connect is priced on a sliding scale by license
volume by host.
Discounts may be applied to orders exceeding 5,000
user licenses.
In addition to scheduled and ad-hoc meetings, Lync
Online offers PC-to-PC audio and video calling, IM/P,
federation, multi-party audio and video, content
sharing and file transfers for $5.50 user / month (Lync
Online - Plan 2).8 Lync Online is also available with
Office 365 subscriptions.

$60

Avg. price per host per month (US$)

Microsoft Lync

EventBuilder and Worktank to create managed or self-managed events, including

virtual events and webcasts.
Lync is designed for the widest range of audience the iworker and not a specific
vertical or niche. While Lync delivers many eLearning features, partners including
EventBuilder, On24 and Worktank build products and services to wrap around
Lync for these scenarios. See here for further information.7
Microsoft offers a consistent single client experience across platforms, and
mobile clients are available as free downloads in each mobile App marketplace.
Lync for iPad provides support for federation, contact search, joining audio
conferences and scheduled meetings, click-to-call, call-forwarding management,
IM/P and broadcast of PowerPoint presentations.
Microsofts browser-based Lync Web App supports IE, Firefox and Safari, and
enables participation in online meetings through IM, desktop, application and
presentation viewing, desktop sharing and program sharing (Windows only),
whiteboard, lobby, and presenter access controls. A free attendee client is
available when audio/ video modalities are a priority.
Lync Online v. Adobe Connect - Named Host & Concurrent User

$50
$40
$30

$20
$10
$0

100

Chart source: Adobe Partners

Adobe Named Host

1000
Number of host licenses
Adobe Concurrent User

5000

Lync Online - Plan 2

MICROSOFT LYNC: FIELD GUIDANCE

In compete situations the following approaches are advised:

LiveMeeting end of service: Transition from LM to Lync may take several years. Flexibility in maintaining LM is
available for strategic customers with EAs via business desk escalation renew until ready to transition. Do not
communicate an end-of-life date for LM, and encourage simultaneous use of both Live Meeting and Lync as an
initial transition step. Customer-facing messaging and ongoing updates are available on UCWeb.

No conferencing solution in place: Lead with cloud services all up, sell an Office 365 SKU that address their UC
needs all up, not just the silod solution. Qualify whether Lync on-premise is a deployment option.

Favorable to Office 365 but require Voice/CEBP/Video interop: Raise the level of discussion to UC, focusing
on platform, single client and familiar interface not workload driven. If customer can be compelled to go onpremise, sell on E4 or Lync Server 2010.

Other options: Lync Online Plan 2 standalone. See Lync Online feature set.9

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
WebEx and Avaya Battlecards (Capitalis, 2012); Vendor Rating: Adobe (Gartner, 2012); Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing
(Gartner, 2011)

7
8
9

http://sharepoint/sites/ucweb/partner/lync/Pages/ManagedEventServices.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/lync-online.aspx#fbid=OYgLhNoA-D6
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=13602

Microsoft Confidential. For internal use only. Do not distribute outside of Microsoft.