Connections

Adobe kicked off its Summit 2017 event March 21 with a slew of announcements, including the launch of a new cloud-based services offering and a series of joint enterprise solutions with Microsoft.

Dubbed Experience Cloud, Adobe’s new cloud offering is comprised of Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Advertising Cloud and Adobe Analytics Cloud, “a comprehensive set of cloud services designed to give enterprises everything they need to deliver exceptional customer experiences,” the company said in a statement.

As part of the offering, Adobe is touting its new Adobe Advertising Cloud as a first end-to-end platform for handling advertising across TV and digital formats, combining the technology of ad buying and management platform Adobe Media Optimizer (AMO) and the advertising software of TubeMogul, which Adobe acquired late last year for $540 million.

“With Adobe Advertising Cloud, brands can centralize all advertising planning and buying through one trusted platform with full transparency into exactly where their ads appear and how effective they are at driving business results,” said Brett Wilson, VP and GM of advertising for Adobe. “We are bridging longstanding media gaps – not just between TV and digital, but also between brand and performance advertising.”

Adobe Sensei — the artificial intelligence, machine learning layer of Adobe’s cloud platform — is also getting an upgrade, with new partner integrations and services for enterprise customers, the company shared.

Additionally, Adobe unveiled a set of joint, cross-channel solutions with Microsoft, combining Adobe Experience Cloud and Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365 and Power BI, with the goal of helping companies better integrate data across marketing and sales.

“Today’s customers have high standards when it comes to brand interactions. Enterprise companies must deliver exceptional experiences at scale or risk losing customers to competitors,” said Abhay Parasnis, EVP and CTO of Adobe. “Bringing together Adobe’s and Microsoft’s sales, marketing and customer intelligence solutions enables brands to better understand and engage with their customers across all touch points.”

Scott Guthrie, EVP of Microsoft, added: “We believe the combined power of our technologies will allow enterprise businesses to harness their data in new ways, unlocking critical business insights and actionable intelligence. Together, we are delivering compelling and personalized experiences that will drive brand loyalty and growth.”

The joint offerings include the integration of Adobe Campaign and Microsoft Dynamics 365,
Adobe Analytics and Microsoft Power BI, and the addition of Adobe Experience Manager Sites Managed Service on Microsoft Azure, allowing for faster personalized web experiences.

Adobe and Microsoft also shared that, in partnership with AppDynamics, Acxiom, Dun & Bradstreet and others, they’re working on a new industry standard for looking at how data is structured to more quickly gain customer insights, a “semantic data model for understanding and driving real-time customer engagement,” the companies said in a statement.