Adobe Unveils Next Generation Internet Video Solution

SAN JOSE, Calif. & LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the Adobe® Media Player™ at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show. This desktop application expands Adobe’s Internet video solutions, adding to an emerging ecosystem that enables new ways to distribute and monetize media, while helping viewers discover and view high-quality content both online and offline. Leveraging Adobe’s Emmy® Award winning Flash® architecture, the Adobe Media Player delivers more engaging video experiences to viewers while offering content publishers new abilities to distribute, track and build businesses around their media assets. A preview of the new player will be shown during NAB, April 16 - 19 (Booth SL 3220).

“NAB is a great venue to preview the new capabilities Adobe is bringing to market later this year – as we build out a technology portfolio that will drive new advances in Internet video authoring, playback and commerce.”

“Akamai and Adobe have a longstanding partnership that enables the world’s leading media companies to deliver consistently high-quality Flash Player video experiences to global audiences,” said Paul Sagan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Akamai. “Adobe continues to be an industry leader in their approach to innovation by delivering new ways for audiences to experience rich, interactive content. We are excited about supporting this latest initiative that will make it easier for our joint customers to facilitate broad distribution of Adobe Flash-based video.”

“Adobe Flash has revolutionized the distribution of video content across the Internet and Adobe Media Player builds on this leadership position,” said Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer at Adobe. “NAB is a great venue to preview the new capabilities Adobe is bringing to market later this year – as we build out a technology portfolio that will drive new advances in Internet video authoring, playback and commerce.”

New Capabilities for the Internet’s Leading Video Format

Delivered as a lightweight download, Adobe Media Player delivers innovation for both viewers and content owners. For viewers, Adobe Media Player enables higher quality Flash format playback, the ability to download and view videos offline, ways to discover interesting new shows, full screen playback, one-click viewer ratings, and a powerful Favorites feature that automatically downloads new episodes of favorite TV shows or video podcasts. The player is cross-platform, based on open standards – including RSS and SMIL – and brings viewers the highly desired ability to play the Web’s most popular video format outside of their browser.

For content publishers, Adobe Media Player enables better ways to deliver, monetize, brand, track and protect video content. It provides an array of video delivery options for high-quality online and offline playback, including on-demand streaming, live streaming, progressive download, and protected download-and-play. The Adobe Media Player enables a wider selection of monetization and branding options including viewer-centric dynamic advertising and the ability to customize the look and feel of the player on the fly to match the brand or theme of the currently playing content.

Advanced Analytics and Content Protection

The technology provides content publishers a standardized toolbox to deploy a variety of innovative new advertising formats, and to compile permission-based analytics data, both online and offline, to better understand their audiences. Building on Adobe's rich history of document protection technology, Adobe Media Player plans to offer content publishers a range of protection options, including streaming encryption, content integrity protection and identity-based protection.

Adobe’s Emerging Internet Video Ecosystem

Adobe Media Player is a key part of Adobe’s emerging ecosystem for the creation and delivery of next generation Internet video. It complements and leverages other Adobe components including: Adobe Flash® Player; the newly announced Adobe® Flash® CS3 Professional; Flash® Media Server 2, server software for streaming media applications; Flash® Lite™ mobile video playback technology; Adobe’s range of media authoring tools such as Adobe Creative Suite® 3 Production Premium for video, audio and motion graphics production; and Adobe Media Encoder for compression and live streaming.

About Adobe Media Player

Adobe Media Player is developed using Apollo, the code name of Adobe’s recently announced application runtime that empowers content publishers and web developers to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop using technologies such as Flash, PDF, and HTML. Adobe Media Player is planned to be available as a free beta download from the Adobe Web site later in 2007 with full availability expected by the end of the year, from Adobe and a wide range of media and technology partners.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

© 2007 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Flash, Flash Lite, and Macromedia are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.