Adobe, creator of the very popular Acrobat Reader used by millions, also said it wants to go beyond ‘traditional’ market segments in the Philippines.

"Adobe Acrobat 8 will not just be for companies, publishing houses, and the traditional segments. We are looking at many other market segments that will surely benefit from the enhancements and improvements of the new software," Raymond Lee, Adobe country manager for South East Asia said.

Lee said the company is looking at emerging industries such as business process outsourcing, financial institutions, and manufacturing, among others, as target markets.

The executive said one interesting market that Adobe is looking at are lawyers.

He said there is a need for documents to be secured for litigations and for other legal matters.

The executive further said more and more people are now going beyond document generation and that more and more applications, such as document design, collaboration, communication, and Web conferencing, are now becoming more critical.

"There is a shift in the workflow. Now, more and more corporate users are finding the need to collaborate more," Lee said.

Lee added that aside from secure document transport and generation, the new Acrobat 8 will have features such as flash, to further enhance communications between users.

"The acquisition of MacroMedia by Adobe means there are now features combing PDF and Flash that users can definitely take advantage of," Lee said, adding that Adobe is now is now combining technologies on top of its popular PDF solutions.

Lee also said the new Acrobat 8 will address technical issues such OS compatibility, Firewalls, and security policies.

"There is now perfect software. But Adobe has addressed all major technical concerns on document generation," Lee said, adding that hackers will always be out there trying to break into major networks.

"But a hacker is more likely to attempt to break into a network and gain monetary returns than try to open a secure PDF document," Lee said.

Lee further said the new Adobe is hoping that Acrobat 8 will surpass sales of the previous version.

While he did not disclose figures for the Philippine market, Lee said Adobe’s business grew 30% year-on-year.