Adobe: 'We're not making Office killer'

Adobe has quashed rumours that it will create an office productivity suite to rival Microsoft Office.

Last week Mike Downey, Adobe's group manager for platform evangelism, hinted the company might be about to develop such software.

Downey clarified the situation in an interview. He said Adobe would focus primarily on providing its development platform, AIR, rather than creating online Office-style applications.

AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) would allow start-up companies to develop their own web-based applications which could rival Microsoft Office.

Adobe's Flash Player is widely used on the web and AIR lets web developers create desktop applications.

Downey said: "Our primary focus is building a platform that allows developers to build great web-based applications. AIR is the ideal platform for building these types of web applications that are robust and powerful."

Adobe is itself using AIR to build some applications. The Adobe Media Player, which it announced earlier this year, is designed for watching internet videos. Even though it is an application, Adobe considers the media player part of the platform it provides to third parties who have the ability to customise it, Downey said.

At the same time, Adobe is encouraging start-ups to write sophisticated web applications that could be online alternatives to Microsoft Office.

Adobe is an investor in Virtual Ubiquity, a company that is writing a sophisticated online word processor built with Adobe's Flex development tools. The application, called Buzzword, runs on Flash and will run on AIR.

There are other online productivity tools such as web-based presentation application SlideRocket that use Flash, Downey noted.

Adobe is also looking to exploit AIR within its existing product line.

AIR, which is now in beta, is expected to be made available in the first quarter of next year.

ZDNet.co.uk's Richard Thurston contributed to this report

Martin LaMonica writes for CNET News.com