“Anyone using the latest version of the standard Acrobat Reader app will now have the industry-leading protection of Intune when handling their corporate documents and forms on mobile devices,” explained Microsoft CVP Brad Anderson in a blog post. As a result of the change, Adobe’s ‘Acrobat Reader for Intune’ app will reach end of service by December 1. Users are prompted to update their Adobe Reader app instead for exactly the same functionality. Intune’s PDF protection can tell if a user is viewing a work or personal document and enable an organization’s security policy if it’s the former. Thankfully, admins won’t have to do much adjusting to accommodate this change, with protection policies that previously targetted Acrobat Reader for Intune automatically carrying over. Microsoft says Acrobat is one of the most common third-party apps among its Microsoft 365 customers, so this should be a useful simplification of its ecosystem. “This type of protection is critically important because it allows you to protect company data on both managed and unmanaged devices. Because mobile app management (MAM) is based on user identity, the requirement for mobile device management (MDM) is removed,” said Anderson. “Both users and IT love this because it allows them to use the same app for both work and personal use, while maintaining the most productive experience possible.” Adobe and Microsoft have a recent history of strong collaboration. Microsoft bought Adobe PDF services to OneDrive and SharePoint, while both worked with SAP on a robust consumer data solution. It’ll be interesting to see where this collaboration leads in the future, with both Adobe and Microsoft providing a suite of vital apps to the enterprise.
