There is a growing desire to provide service at the point of need, or “at the point of inspiration” as Tim Cadogan of Yahoo says. Yahoo and Adobe have announced a collaboration around the Yahoo toolbar which will put Adobe and Yahoo functionality together on the desktop. This is another example of ‘recombinant service provision’, where services are being unbundled and recombined in ways which map onto user behaviors.
Under the deal, Adobe will first introduce a cobranded Yahoo browser toolbar that users can choose to install on their computers when prompted to download an update of Acrobat Reader. The toolbar — an increasingly popular method of online search engines to stay constantly visible on a user’s Internet browser — will feature links to Yahoo products and services as well as Adobe’s Web-based subscription service that lets people convert documents into the Adobe PDF file format. [USATODAY.com – Yahoo, Adobe team up for new Web services]
