IBM Partners with Adobe for the Future of Forms

by Alex Woodie

IBM has seen the future of forms processing, and it's an Adobe PDF (or portable document format) form. The two companies extended their partnership last week with a new agreement to further integrate Adobe's forms software with IBM's middleware stack, beginning with DB2 Content Manager, an enterprise-strength imaging and content-indexing system, and a similar offering specifically for SAP environments. But the companies' roadmap calls for even more integration and use of Adobe software with IBM's WebSphere products.

Last week's announcement standardizes the connectivity between IBM's DB2 Content Manager and Adobe's Forms Server and Forms Designer. Previously, users who connected the two products did so by writing custom code. Now Forms Server can talk directly to the DB2 Content Manager repository, which is available in multiplatform (Windows, Unix, and Linux), OS/400, and mainframe flavors, in addition to application-specific offerings, such as those for SAP, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange.

While DB2 Content Manager already had the capability to store documents in the PDF format, it was limited in its use of the PDF. Previously, users would have to print the PDF form, fill it in, then fax or mail it back to the issuing organization, says Harry Vitelli, vice president of business development for Adobe's document solutions group. As a result of the integration, they can now fill in the PDF online and submit the completed form electronically. "We've moved from a print and fill to a fill and submit, which dramatically changes the workflow," Vitelli says. "It's essentially getting rid of data-entry errors."

The integration between Adobe's PDF server software and DB2 Content Manager is just the beginning. IBM intends to make extensive use of the PDF, which has become the de facto standard for electronic documents for corporations, governments, and other organizations that need an affordable, consistent, secure, and easy-to-use way to present forms to people. No other presentation format--plain text, Word document, HTML, XML, PCL, PostScript, AFP--possesses the combination of these attributes, and the result has been a surge in PDF use, with over half a billion free PDF readers downloaded, Adobe says. Among midrange shops, there is a strong push to get business documents, such as invoices, purchase orders, and receipts, into the PDF format, so they can be posted to the Internet, e-mailed, faxed, or even printed and mailed.

But the PDF doesn't stop with DB2 Content Manager, as IBM and Adobe intend to further integrate Adobe's forms technology with its software. "The technology roadmap calls for shared document services over time, including forms generation, documentation, and security, and moving them to IBM's software middleware stack," Vitelli says. "We're primarily interested in a few areas: Content Manager first and, second, WebSphere." There are also plans to integrate Adobe's software with the Tivoli systems management software stack.

Adobe also has a desire to capture some of the market for serving less dynamic forms than what is found in DB2 Content Manager, such as the automatically formatted invoices, purchase orders, and receipts that companies generate using document management software from a number of vendors. "We have a lot of interest in serving the ERP space, and we think WebSphere is a key component for doing that," Vitelli says, adding that the company has no specific plans in place at this time. "It's a very natural space for us."

Last year Adobe, which is based in Silicon Valley, acquired Accelio, which had just gobbled up JetForm, a successful developer of document management products. Adobe's server products, including Forms Server, are based on these JetForm products, but Adobe's machinations for the midrange market (which is dominated by Windows and Unix platforms, but also includes Linux, OS/400, and VMS platforms) are unclear as yet. The company recently announced plans to sunset some of the legacy JetForm products, including JetForm Design and JetForm Filler, in favor of native PDF design tools.

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