Adobe adds open-source tool, AIR integration to LiveCycle Enterprise

Computerworld - Adobe Systems Inc. today announced that its LiveCycle Enterprise Suite will be updated next month with a new open-source enterprise content management option and support for its Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) tool that provides offline access to rich Internet applications (RIA).

LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES) Update 1 -- due on July 17 -- continues the expansion of ES from its beginnings as an enterprise forms building tool to an integrated process management, document generation, document security and enterprise content management tool that can help companies build RIAs.

The new release adds ES Content Services, which includes an enterprise content repository and social collaboration tools, Adobe said. The ES Content Services tool set, based on open-source content management technology distributed by Alfresco Software Inc., can be used to rapidly build applications that can create, store, search, manage and archive content, noted Raja Hammond, group product marketing manager for LiveCycle.

Embedding Alfresco in the suite is meant to help companies that have to build their own interfaces and their own logic in LiveCycle because they don't have an enterprise content management system or the one they have is too difficult to use, she said.

"Alfresco has a fantastic lightweight installation," Hammond added. "It is J2EE server-based, so it is very much aligned with our architecture. We're able with this release to totally embed it. We've done extensive customization to the UIs to add additional capabilities to them. We've integrated them tightly with the various solution components within LiveCycle."

Content Services will cost $25,000 per CPU or $125 per user for a minimum of 100 users.

Update 1 of ES also includes an optional LiveCycle PDF Generator 3-D tool, a server-based offering that centrally manages the creation, assembly, distribution and archiving of engineering product data. The data is distributed in a single PDF document that can be shared with anyone running Adobe Reader, Adobe said.

The PDF Generator tool is priced at $60,000 per CPU or $300 per user with a minimum of 100 users

The release also adds support for the newest versions of Adobe clients, including Adobe Reader 9, Acrobat 9, Flex 3 and Adobe AIR.

"In this release, we enhance connectivity with AIR so customers can build desktop applications very rich in nature that can connect to LiveCycle services when they are online and when offline," Hammond noted.

The updated offering also adds:

• Record and playback features for debugging LiveCycle applications as they are run on the server.
• Process validation to ensure that processes are strong enough to add to the server.
• Upgraded support for rapidly locating commonly used services.
• Advanced typographic controls to better control text formatting through pair kerning, horizontal and vertical scaling, letter spacing and dot leaders.