Adobe is gonna try nibbling on the great PowerPoint franchise. It’s publicly beta testing a collaborative web-based presentation application built on Flash called Acrobat.com Presentations.

The widgetry is another arrow in a quill of hosted services that already includes a web-based word processor called Buzzword and web conferencing service called ConnectNow.

Adobe says the new software can create professional-looking presentations and includes built-in tools and layouts that add visually appealing elements such as pre-defined color sets, intelligent image placement and graphics tools for creating diagrams and special effects like slide transitions and embedded videos.

People can collaborate separately or at the same time. There’s a simultaneous editing capability and Adobe says there will be no need to hunt down the latest version since the presentation lives online or combine multiple copies at the last minute to capture everybody’s changes.

It says it can be delivered online using ConnectNow or offline by exporting to PDF.

See www.labs.adobe.com/technologies/presentations.

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