Good news for trees
Remember ‘the paperless office'? The prospect of going 100 percent electronic, and thus saving a bunch of trees, has been going by that term since at least 1975, if not earlier. But 36 years later there's still plenty of paper being used by businesses, especially where the legal implications of a signature are required.
Our reliance on pen and paper may be about to be lessened significantly with the acquisition of electronic signature company EchoSign by software giant Adobe. EchoSign will be incorporated into Adobe's Document Exchange Services Platform, alongside products such as Acrobat, SendNow and FormsCentral.
"Adobe's document solutions help organizations turn inefficient, paper-based workflows into streamlined electronic ones," said Kevin M. Lynch, VP and GM of Acrobat and Digital Enterprise Solutions at Adobe. "By adding electronic signature capabilities to Adobe's document exchange services platform, we will be addressing the need to provide better customer experiences by significantly reducing the time, cost and complexity associated with having a document signed."
Apparently Echosign enables a one-click signature, and automates the whole process from the request for a signature to the distribution of a form or agreement. If it is a fool-proof, secure way of an individual giving their legally-binding consent or approval, then it's easy to see how it would come in handy.
"Bringing together EchoSign's ease of use for contracting on the Web with Adobe's brand, reach and trust in the document space, I fully expect that electronic signatures will soon become the common way for people to sign documents," said Jason Lemkin, CEO of EchoSign. "With nothing to download, learn or install, there is simply no faster or more secure way for organizations to sign, track or file contracts - and close more business quickly."
We still think they missed a trick by not signing the PDF below though.
