Interview: Ben Watson, group manager of Adobe's Enterprise Developer Relations department, says the company is encouraging tool development for new vertical segments.Adobe Systems Inc. has captured the hearts of many developers with its PDF offerings. But, like many companies that want to stay nimble, Adobe has realized that in order to keep growing and broadening the capability of its products, it has to tap into that developer community. In late 2004, that need gave rise to the Enterprise Developer Relations department, providing a bridge between Adobe and its developer community. The group's head, Ben Watson, spoke last week with PDFzone about the department's mission, and what its work could mean for Acrobat.
PDFzone: Why did Adobe feel the need to establish an enterprise developer initiative, and what does it provide?
Ben Watson: When we looked at the challenges that developers were facing, one of the major issues was that traditional Web application developers often don't have senior Java developer experience available to them. Since Adobe's intelligent document platform bridges the gap between J2EE and the core infrastructure, developers often need guidance with having Adobe in their existing architectures.
So, we knew we had to provide training and expertise so developers could widen their skill sets as appropriate. The goal of our team is to build out content, provide support and increase visibility to help developers and designers be able to integrate Acrobat into their processes.
PDFzone: With this drive toward expanding Adobe's reach—by getting developers to build specific tools that build on the functionality of Acrobat—is the company also looking to expand its market beyond creative professionals, and the legal and government industries?
BW: When our team looks at developers, we're aware of where Adobe has had success in the past. But while we understand specific aspects within vertical markets, we're trying to address developers in a broader range of industries. Ultimately, what we're doing is needs-driven as opposed to industry-driven. So, while most of the developers we deal with are in areas like the public sector or financial services, we've seen developer need in many other industries as well.
Read the full story on PDFzone.com: Adobe Recruits Developers for Enterprise Push
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