Adobe EchoSign Rebrands as Adobe Sign, Preps for DTM War with DocuSign

By Jim Lundy –

EchoSign and Adobe eSign Services are no more. This week, Adobe announced a series of updates and enhancements for its Digital Transaction Management (DTM) Platform, Adobe Document Cloud, and one of those announcements included the rebranding of EchoSign as Adobe Sign.

The news spread across branding and partnerships, mobile and integration. All of this is good news as it preps Adobe for a prolonged battle with DocuSign. This blog highlights some of the updates that make Adobe one to watch in DTM .

Adobe Shows It’s Serious About DTM

Adobe’s announcements were multi-faceted and to us, demonstrate its commitment to Digital Transaction Management. The integrations with Adobe Marketing Cloud, the partnerships with Box and Microsoft, and an improved mobile experience all arrive at a time when enterprises are starting to double down on DTM.

On top of all of that, it appears that Adobe has made some management changes. Document Cloud now rolls up to Bryan Lamkin, the Adobe SVP who owns Adobe Creative Cloud. Bryan is a longtime and well respected executive at Adobe. We suspect he played a role in the new rebranding.

From EchoSign to Adobe Sign

Adobe bought EchoSign in July 2011 and it kept that name after the acquisition until its rebrand as Adobe Document Cloud eSign Services in March 2015. This week, it made the right move and rebranded as Adobe Sign, a simple and easy way to remember the Service (see Figure 1). From a marketing perspective, people remember shorter names—this puts Adobe on par with other brands, such as their arch rival DocuSign.

Marketing Cloud Integration

Adobe is clearly trying to leverage its brand power with CMOs. By making Adobe Sign fully integrated with its flagship Marketing Cloud (via Adobe Experience Manager Forms), it gives itself immediate access to the entire installed base of Adobe Marketing Cloud Customers. We expect that the Marketing Cloud integration will help Adobe gain additional placements of Adobe Sign.

The other major benefit is that with the integration with Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms and the Acrobat DC product line, there are more Advanced DTM solutions that Adobe can offer.

Partnerships: A Work in Progress

The news of integrations with Box and Microsoft OneDrive were must haves, but this shows that Adobe is committed to working with major Mobile Content Management Providers. DocuSign has had these relationships in place for a while, but with Adobe’s renewed focus on DTM, we expect to hear more from them on even more partnerships going forward.

The DTM War Between Adobe and DocuSign

We call the battle between Adobe and DocuSign a War, because we expect it to be waged for a long time. In 2011, the year that Adobe bought Echo Sign, they were on fire. 2011 was also the year that Keith Krach joined DocuSign as Chairman and CEO. Since then, DocuSign has become the fastest growing Unicorn in Silicon Valley with a $3 Billion valuation.

Adobe has tremendous resources it can bring to bear to win in Digital Transaction Management and this series of announcements demonstrate its commitment. DocuSign isn’t standing still either—it made a number of announcements at its Momentum Customer Event (see Aragon Blog).

Bottom Line

In any growing market, competition is healthy. Adobe and DocuSign are not the only players in this market, but they are two of the largest. It will be interesting to watch how the war to own DTM will evolve. Developing.