I will never forget Page Mill, the first WYSIWG HTML editor software I ever used (back in the mid 90′s). It was how I was introduced to a little company called Adobe, and I’ve been a fan ever since. From Dreamweaver to InDesign, I cannot imagine a computer without Adobe’s software. With the introduction of the robust, comprehensive, and very user/business-friendly Acrobat.com, I have become even more excited about the future of Adobe and its role in online collaboration.

I had the privilege of talking with Erik Larson on The Social Nerdia Show! yesterday. Erik is the Sr. Director of Marketing and Product Management for Adobe’s Acrobat.com. You can listen to our conversation in its entirety on the BTR player above or by subscribing to our podcast (iTunes).

My first question was around collaboration, and Erik told me that mega trends driving collaboration include the way in which people are interacting online in a much more real-time basis than ever before and how this is changing the way we work. He explained that email wasn’t built thinking about the internet and that ”the way of interacting socially in your personal life can translate into business.”

Erik spends his time not only strategizing about the future of Acrobat.com, but also conversing with people on Twitter, blogs, and elsewhere online. Some of the comments people make online actually fit into the bigger picture. “I can use those quotes from Twitter and show them to our CEO,” Erik told me.

Acrobat.com also formally obtains feedback from users via IDEAS. Such users are “lead users” who are “more articulate” about specific in their feedback. Twitter provides timely thoughts about their products (sometimes along with witty comments), but they don’t always include details like those shared in the IDEAS community.

Regarding a social media policy, Erik said that “it’s pretty open” at Adobe and that the reasoning is that theyr realize that employees can publish their thoughts and opinions offline as much as online, and they usually use their real identities. On transparency, Erik said that he “tends towards the highly transparent side of things” and that while Adobe tries to be as transparent as possible, there are limitations due to marketing and legal reasons.

We discussed the beginning of Acrobat.com, which started before the acquisition of Virtual Ubiquity (and with it Buzzword, the web-based word processor with social capabiltiies that is now part of the Acrobat.com suite). Erik explained that back then, before Twitter existed, they worked with ethnographers and “a pattern emerged… when people are doing work, they are always struggling between getting something done and getting it right, so we looked at that challenge. We also saw that everything was going to the cloud.”

Acrobat.com is therefore the result of a “combination of problems people have now, where the world is going, and an inspiring example (Buzzword) of what’s possible.”

I figured that when Adobe moved into the word processing space, the relationship with Microsoft and Google must have changed a little bit. So I asked Erik about this and he responded that this is “continuously happening” in the tech industry and that “the relationships are complicated.” He also acknowledged that without Microsoft, “Flash wouldn’t be the great success that it has been.”

And Flash is at the center of the difference between the offerings of Microsoft, Google, and Adobe.

Microsoft’s Office is what most people are familiar with and with 2010, we’ll probably see a slick Silverlight web-based version of it. Google Docs, on the other hand, does not need either Flash or Silverlight, and it already exists in the cloud. Adobe’s Acrobat.com is based on Flash so I wondered if that was a limitation, but Erik actually made me realize that they provide everyone with “access to exactly the same great experience.”

So Adobe is able to give the same experience to virtually everyone because most people already have Flash, which is essential to “the collaboration equation.” Erik further explained that while Google and Microsoft are battling it out in the “good enough” market, his team is focusing on “the most demanding customers” instead of going after the masses.  ”We’re all about design and experience, and in the long-term, that will matter more, even for businesses.”

Somebody raised a great question in the chat (The Social Nerdia Show! is recorded live via blogtalkradio) about whether web-based software is a way to stop people from using unlicensed software. Erik ansewered that businesses are used to paying for software and that their offerings allow for flexibility. “For consumers, I don’t know why consumers should pay for software that they don’t want to pay for. With the costs so low maybe they shouldn’t, and that’s certainly our belief with the freemium model of Acrobat.com.”

Erik also provided me with great insights about the freemium model, piracy, the kind of people that  make up his marketing team, Adobe’s Flex (which “can go beyond AJAX“), open-source, and the future of Acrobat.com (starting with the integration of “Tables” and “Presentations”, and the release of native mobile apps in the Fall).

Finally, Erik told me about his road to Adobe. From being a farm boy to an aeronautical engineering at MIT, becoming a Captain for the US Air Force,  and obtaining an MBA from Harvard Business, his story is very interesting and I’m sure you’ll be as inspired as I was.