Adobe Bundles Google Toolbar with Its Products

WebKnowHow
Thursday, June 22, 2006; 02:08 AM

Adobe announced the signing of a multi-year agreement with Google to distribute the Google Toolbar with various Adobe products over the life of the deal. As a part of the agreement, Adobe and Google bundled the Google Toolbar with downloads of Adobe's Macromedia Shockwave Player. The Google Toolbar is now offered as part of the Shockwave Player installation process for Internet Explorer on Windows. Under the terms of the agreement, the Google Toolbar will also be offered as part of other Adobe product installations in the future.

With over 200 million downloads to date, the Macromedia Shockwave Player is a popular standard for multimedia playback. Available for free, the Shockwave Player allows users to view interactive Web content such as games, business presentations, entertainment, and advertisements from a Web browser. Hundreds of thousands of Shockwave Players are downloaded every day, and Shockwave Player is installed on more than 55 percent of Internet-enabled desktops. 

The Google Toolbar is a free download that adds a Google search box to a Web browser, so users can access Google search capabilities from any Website. The Toolbar also includes innovative features that make browsing more efficient -- such as instant suggestions as you type in the search box, a spellchecker, and a pop-up blocker. Users can also personalize the Toolbar by adding buttons for their favorite sites. Additional information is available at toolbar.google.com.

"As leaders in our respective market categories, it's fitting for Adobe and Google to work together to improve the ways customers engage with ideas and information," said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief operating officer at Adobe. "Our customers will benefit from the power and convenience of the Google Toolbar, and the popularity and reach of Adobe technology gives Google even broader exposure to a growing base of consumers. We expect the agreement to represent significant revenue to Adobe over a period of years."

"Adobe customers are some of the most savvy, enthusiastic consumers of Web content, and we think they'll love the fact that Google Toolbar will let them take the power of Google search with them anywhere on the Web," said Omid Kordestani, senior vice president of global sales and business development at Google. "Adobe and Google are teaming up to help users more easily and quickly find the ever-increasing sources of information that are important to them."

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.