SEYBOLD, BOSTON, (April 10, 2001) --Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE), the leader in Network Publishing, and Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), the leading global online retailer, today announced a global alliance to offer the Adobe® Acrobat® eBook Reader? software in Amazon.com's e-book store (www.amazon.com/ebooks). The site will offer nearly two thousand Adobe Portable Document Format- (PDF) based eBooks, including several diverse titles from major publishers. Over the next 12 months, the two companies plan to extend the alliance to Amazon's international sites in France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. Starting today, customers visiting Amazon.com's eBooks store can download the Acrobat eBook Reader free of charge and choose from a vast selection of Adobe PDF titles. Among the unique titles are: "The Blue Nowhere," by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster); "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth," by Ric Edelman (Harper Collins); "The Big Red Fez," by Seth Godin (Seth Godin Publishers); and "Profit From the Core: Growth Strategy in an Era of Turbulence" by Chris Zook (Harvard Business School Press). The digital selection also includes business content from META Group and articles from the Harvard Business Review; travel-related eBooks covering specific regions from Publications Unbound; and color, graphical children's books such as "Barney Is It Time Yet?" (iPicturebooks). "Because Amazon.com is a company born and bred in the digital age, the company understands that the reach of eBooks is much bigger than mainstream novels and consumer titles," said Michael Looney, senior director of eBooks at Adobe. "By teaming with Amazon.com, we will give consumers world-wide a graphically-rich, interactive eBook reading experience with the added ability to print content. Mobile professionals and students in particular can leverage these benefits with eBooks such as financial reports and course packets."