Adobe Acquires Glassbook; Announces Alliances

Posted on August 28, 2000

Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced an agreement to acquire Boston-based Glassbook, Incorporated. Glassbook is a developer of consumer and commercial software for the eBook market. Glassbook products, technologies and services included in this acquisition are the Glassbook Reader, Glassbook Plus Reader and the Glassbook Content Server.

The acquisition comes as Microsoft, with its Microsoft Reader software, is battling Adobe Systems for marketshare in the ebook software arena. Adobe also recently announced an expanded relationship with Barnes&Noble.com and its ebookstore. Adobe also announced alliances with ContentGuard, iUniverse, InterTrust and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

``Glassbook is a significant player in the eBook arena. This acquisition really strengthens Adobe's ebook initiative and gives it a stronger story for the publishing community,'' said Mark Walter, ebook analyst, Seybold Publications and editor of the Seybold Report on Internet Publishing.

Glassbook was founded by Len Kawell, president, Mary Ellen Heinen, vice president, sales and marketing and Tom Diaz, vice president, development. The founders, along with the rest of the Glassbook team, will all become employees of Adobe. The Glassbook Reader technology will be integrated into future versions of the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Through the Glassbook Content Server, Adobe will enable publishers to distribute their work electronically in Adobe PDF format.

``Adobe and Glassbook share a common vision for the future of eBooks,'' said Len Kawell at Glassbook. ``Combining Adobe's publishing expertise with the technology strength of Glassbook underscores this vision, which is the availability of an eBooks platform that is simple, easily accessible and open.''



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