Industry leading eLearning software solution now also available for Mac OS
SYDNEY, Australia — 4th May 2010 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® eLearning Suite 2, a significant upgrade to its tightly integrated, end-to-end solution for easily creating, reviewing and maintaining eLearning content. The suite, now natively compatible with Mac OS in addition to Windows, enables eLearning professionals, educators and trainers to turn creative ideas into dynamic eLearning materials that engage learners with multimedia and interactivity. eLearning Suite 2 — anchored by the new Adobe Captivate® 5 — includes Adobe Flash® Professional CS5, Adobe Dreamweaver® CS5, Adobe Photoshop® CS5 Extended, Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro, Adobe Presenter 7 and Adobe Soundbooth® CS5.
“Today’s educational and professional learning departments are under enormous pressure to deliver impactful content quickly and efficiently,” said Naresh Gupta, senior vice president, Print and Publishing at Adobe. “eLearning Suite 2 is a major leap forward in eLearning content creation. It addresses the challenge with its tightly integrated toolset that allows content creators to develop powerful media-rich eLearning experiences without the time and expense of programming.”
Adobe eLearning Suite 2 enhances productivity with smarter aggregation capabilities included in Adobe Captivate 5, eLearning extensions for Dreamweaver and Flash, and new application round tripping workflows between authoring and asset creation tools. For example, a course designer can now insert Adobe Photoshop CS5 (PSD) files as smart objects into an Adobe Captivate project and update the images with one click should the original files change without having to resave and reinsert images. Similar workflows exist between the other eLearning Suite components including Adobe Captivate, Soundbooth and Flash.
“Timely, effective training on the use of our products is critical for us and our customers to meet compliance requirements,” said Mary McGivern, Instructional Designer, Omnicell, a leading provider of comprehensive, technologically advanced automation that enables healthcare facilities to acquire, manage, dispense, and deliver medications and supplies more effectively. “The new user interface in Adobe Captivate 5 lets me work more efficiently and is now similar to other Adobe products. This will speed up my workflow and help me meet timelines more effectively.”
Introducing Captivate 5
Adobe Captivate is the industry-leading, rapid authoring solution for developing demonstrations, application simulations and branching scenarios – without requiring programming expertise while not compromising quality. Version 5, which introduces the software to Mac OS, offers exciting new features that allow users to do more complex tasks faster such as enhanced importing and round tripping for Microsoft PowerPoint.
The new user interface — similar to the Dreamweaver CS5, Flash CS5 and Photoshop CS5 interfaces — lets users create and revise content faster and more easily than ever before by supporting multiple document editing and personalised workspaces. The Properties Inspector tool also boosts time-savings, as course authors can edit object properties in fewer steps. Additionally, eLearning professionals can leverage an expanded asset library and use customisable widgets to quickly create tables and design graphical buttons. Other major enhancements include support for rich animation effects, the ability to import videos in popular formats (AVI, MOV, FLV, MPEG) and synchronise video across multiple slides.
For more effective collaboration, Adobe Captivate 5 customers can upload, exchange and review content, as well as track and report learner scores by signing up for Adobe’s online productivity software, Acrobat.com (available separately). Also, a new widget lets students and educators interact via Twitter, facilitating online Q&As and group discussion.
To ease the process of maintaining content, Adobe Captivate 5 introduces Object Style editing, which facilitates changes project-wide with just a few clicks, allowing content creators to easily define and modify the look and feel of buttons, text, images and other elements. eLearning designers can also create Master Slides with preset themes and styles for text, shapes and graphics. This accelerates authoring as contributors can focus on content rather than formatting details, and ensures that the look and feel of an organisation’s presentations are preserved. Once eLearning content is published, training and learning professionals can track and report key performance metrics via Acrobat.com or their own Web server.
Pricing and Availability
Adobe eLearning Suite 2 and Adobe Captivate 5 are expected to be available via Adobe Authorised Resellers, the Adobe Australia Store and the Adobe New Zealand Store in June. Customers can pre-order Adobe eLearning Suite 2 and Captivate 5 today. Estimated street price for the eLearning Suite 2 is A$3,008; upgrade pricing starts at A$1,003. Estimated street price for Adobe Captivate 5 is A$1,337; upgrade pricing starts at A$502. Educational pricing is available for both products.
Both products are compatible with Mac OS X v10.5.7 or v10.6, Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended), Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 or Windows 7 (certified for 32-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7). The Mac OS version of eLearning Suite 2 does not contain Adobe Presenter.
Helpful Links
eLearning Suite 2 and Captivate 5 Customer Quote Sheet
eLearning Workflows in eLearning Suite 2
eLearning Suite 2 home page
What’s new in eLearning Suite 2 (On-demand seminar)
Top new features in Captivate 5
Captivate 5 home page
What’s new in Captivate 5 (On-demand seminar)
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionises how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.