I suppose proper journalists report actual news as they have sources. In a blog it is ok to just ask a question and confess to ignorance.

What is supposed to be good about Acrobat 8.0 ? Apparently it will appear in the fourth quarter of this year. This is June, the summer drift has started, at least for me, but still as memory serves on the previous seven occasions there was some kind of rumor as to what to expect.

Having listened to a webcast of the recent briefings for financial analysts I can say that I have some idea of where Flash is going and what to expect from the next Creative Suite. But the only information on Acrobat 8.0 is that the upgrades will be a boost to income.

Just had a look at Google blogsearch and this seems to still be the main aspect.
According to Sundar Mudaliyar for PDF Converting, "Cowen and Company said investors worried over Adobe's disappointing guidance for the fourth quarter should take comfort in the launch of Adobe's new Acrobat 8.0 product, set for launch in November.

Analyst Walter Pritchard said the launch of Acrobat 8.0 in the fall could boost revenue by 29% sequentially."

The question is though "what are the features that will encourage the upgrade?", at least that seems a reasonable question at some point.

Sundar Mudaliyar has only limited information- "Acrobat 8.0 will offer users enhanced interactivity features to counter Microsoft's Vista operating system, which is slated for launch in early 2007 and could include PDF conversion tools."

OK, "enhanced interactivity", what can this mean? There is some information coming out from the Flash end of Adobe around 'Apollo' which seems to be a way to work offline with a web environment. Currently I find that Acrobat can capture web pages with Flash but the result can disappear when you save it. Maybe a future PDF will work better as a Flash container. Is that it?

Acrobat is now part of a 'knowledge worker' business unit that also works with Breeze. I find Breeze ok except that I miss having a record later as you do with a PDF set of slides. Maybe Acrobat 8 will include a Breeze plugin.

Whatever the guessing might be about Flash, has PDF development come to an end? This could be the real worry around the Microsoft issues. Creating PDF for static office documents and litho pages is pretty well sorted out and may not remain the sort of function that can be charged at a premium.

So information on what Acrobat 8 actually offers would be interesting.