S60 devices already ship with Adobe Reader LE 1.5, providing users with the ability to open and read Acrobat documents. So why would Quickoffice launch a commercial reader? "Very simply, our reader is better," says Naga Hariharan, director of product management at Quickoffice. "We have been able to provide a number of features that make reading Acrobat files on an S60 device a better experience." Naga points to the ability to open a far wider range of larger Acrobat files, significant performance improvements, and a text reflow feature (which eliminates horizontal scrolling while reading) as reasons users will find the Quickoffice reader an attractive proposition.

At first sight going head-to-head with Adobe's own product may seem rash; however this is not the case. The Quickoffice reader has been developed in cooperation with Adobe, rather than in competition. At the core of the product is a mobile Acrobat rendering engine created by Adobe, onto which Quickoffice has built the S60 UI interface. The product even shares the same name, Adobe Reader LE.

"This development was a lot about recognizing strengths," says Gregg Fiddes, vice president of sales and strategic partnerships. "We have a prime position on S60 with the Quickoffice suite. We know the S60 UI very well and understand the features users need in mobile office applications. We work closely with several Symbian licensees, including Nokia, and have expertise in the processes involved in delivering applications to ROM on S60 devices. Adobe is concentrating on developing a multi-platform engine for rendering Acrobat documents. As Acrobat document viewing is a very good fit into the functionality we deliver with Quickoffice suite, this cooperation makes sense."

Playing to each company's strengths has had significant benefits for the user. "With Adobe concentrating on development of the underlying engine, the handling of PDF formats is right up-to-date in our offering," says Naga. "And Adobe will continue to enhance the engine, so our mobile application can stay up to date and deliver users the same experience they get on the desktop. We are already able to cope with two new generations of the Acrobat technology not covered by the free reader." In addition, Quickoffice benefits from Adobe's extensive testing of the engine. "Adobe have tested the engine against more than 100,000 documents randomly downloaded from the Internet," says Naga.

Quickoffice's claims for Adobe Reader LE 2.5 seem to be justified. Some initial testing - in advance of a full review - shows that Adobe Reader LE 2.5 is indeed fast, and certainly much quicker than any previous Acrobat reader we have seen for Symbian devices. It effortlessly opened and navigated a 21 Mb Acrobat file of over 700 pages and is capable of opening files that fail to open in the free reader.

While Quickoffice's Adobe Reader shares its name with the free product, this is about the only thing it does share. The application is not an enhancement of the free reader, but a completely new development built on top of the Adobe engine by Quickoffice. The rendering engine handles the file opening and rendering of the content, including font processing and substitution. In addition to support for the latest Acrobat formats, the engine also significantly improves opening speed and memory handling compared to the technology used in the free reader. The UI features, including the reflow and Quickoffice style zooming, were all created by Quickoffice.

Very often this type of cooperative development can be frustrating. "It's not uncommon in the computer industry for partners to make claims about their products that prove to be a little exaggerated," says Gregg. "With Adobe we had no such issues. If they told us the engine would do something, it invariably did exactly what they claimed."

This successful technical cooperation reflects a broader business strategy; cooperation is a cornerstone of Quickoffice's goal to offer users the broadest and deepest support for document tasks on Symbian smartphones. "Over the coming months we expect to make a number of announcements expanding the office functionality we offer our users," says Gregg. "At least one of those announcements will involve a cooperative arrangement similar to the one with Adobe. In addition, we have a number of new complimentary products and services we expect to bring to market."

While Gregg claims Quickoffice's technical ability to implement S60 applications has a strong influence on its ability to put together cooperative deals, David Brennan, director ecommerce sales and marketing, noted that "We also have a lot to offer our partners through our knowledge of marketing to mobile users. While creating mobile applications and services is not easy, getting them to the users can often be a bigger challenge. Through Quickmanager, our relationship with Symbian licensees, and knowledge of the media that reaches smartphone users, we offer our partners a lot more than a technical solution."

The approach taken by Quickoffice in bringing Adobe Reader LE 2.5 to market is an interesting development within the Symbian ecosystem. A number of companies have previously used third-party B2B developers to bring their technology to market. This approach has left the marketing to the technology originator and as a result several products have failed to reach their full potential. Quickoffice is one of the first user facing companies to help others implement their technology for Symbian smartphones. With the undoubted challenges of marketing to a mobile audience, companies that offer both technical and marketing skills could soon emerge as application powerhouses. Quickoffice seems set to be one of the first of this new breed.