Adobe XML Architecture and New eForm Design Tool Announced 7/15/2003

["Peter Kacandes" <pkacande@adobe.com>]

For the XML specifications pertaining to this announcement see

http://partners.adobe.com/asn/tech/pdf/xmlformspec.jsp

For sample PDF/XML files see:

http://partners.adobe.com/asn/tech/pdf/samples.jsp

Press Release URL:

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200307/071503XMLFORM
.html

Full Text:

Adobe Advances Intelligent Documents with New XML/PDF Form Design Software

New Software Takes Advantage of Adobe's XML Architecture to Enable Easy
Creation and Deployment of Intelligent Electronic Documents in PDF and XDP
SAN JOSE, Calif. — July 15, 2003 (NASDAQ: ADBE) — Adobe Systems
Incorporated, the leader in network publishing, today announced new
graphical design software for creating intelligent electronic documents.
Leveraging the power of PDF for presenting information and XML for
processing data, the new form design software will enable organizations to
easily design and deploy intelligent forms in Adobe Portable Document Format
(PDF) or in an XML Data Package (XDP). Combined with Adobe's server
solutions, now customers in industries such as financial services,
manufacturing and governments worldwide can leverage their current
infrastructure, knowledge and investment in applications to connect people
and processes across the extended enterprise.

The new XML/PDF form designer software builds on Adobe's XML architecture
(see news release dated April 7, 2003) that supports end-to-end document
processes. It provides all the capabilities needed to design forms with
precision, including the ability to easily define business logic and
incorporate existing or user-defined XML schemas. By enabling form designers
to include user-defined XML schemas they can use XML vocabularies specific
to particular verticals or cross-industry standards. Forms can be deployed
in PDF and then processed as PDF is today, or delivered as an XML Data
Package (XDP) to be processed as XML. XDP files are simply XML files that
contain XML form data, XML form templates, PDF documents and other XML
information. They can be easily integrated with enterprise applications via
commonly available XML tools and web services.

"Thanks to XML, the distinction between enterprise documents and enterprise
forms has irreversibly blurred," said Tim Hickernell, vice president META
Group. "By leveraging the power of XML to build more intelligent documents,
companies are now challenged to design enterprise forms that are flexible
enough to allow maximum reuse of corporate data across enterprise systems,
as well as across traditional enterprise documents."