I’m pleased to announce that the much-anticipated major upgrades to Articulate Presenter, Quizmaker, and Engage are now available. All three products, along with the all-new Articulate Video Encoder, are available as part of Articulate Studio ’09 Pro.

Following our most successful beta program ever — with more than 500 beta testers — we launched Studio ’09 to the rest of the world on Tuesday, September 30, 2008: Articulate Releases New Suite of E-Learning Authoring Tools.

Along with these exciting new releases is an upgraded website and support site, chock-full of comprehensive feature tours (AP09 | QM09 | EN09), product demos (AP09 | QM09 | EN09), and excellent new tutorials:

• Presenter ’09 tutorials
• Quizmaker ’09 tutorials
• Engage ’09 tutorials
• Video Encoder ’09 tutorials

If you’re not sure where to start, the new product overview demos are a good place. Here’s what we have for Presenter ’09:

View Presenter ’09 Overview Demo

And for Quizmaker ’09:

View Quizmaker ’09 Overview Demo

As you’ll see in the demos, there are so many new and exciting features in all of the products that it’s impossible to outline everything here, but I’ll highlight a few of the features that “simply leave other eLearning development apps I’ve seen in the dust,” as Chris at eQuixotic put it (Articulate Studio ’09 Has Arrived!).

Here are some of my favorite new features in each product:

Presenter ’09

• Slide preview (1 or many)
• Slide branching
• Improved Flash conversion fidelity
• Single project file
• On-slide annotations
• Notes formatting
• Publish to CD now creates a self-contained EXE
• Publish to Podcast
• Lots more!

Quizmaker ’09

• Rebuilt from the ground up!
• Two development modes: Form View & Slide View (if you use PowerPoint, you’ll be right at home)
• Free-form editing, timeline view, customizable themes and more in Slide View
• Question groups & pooling
• Built-in audio editor
• Slide master
• Lots more!

Engage ’09

• Branching (link to other parts of your interaction)
• Community Interactions & Engage SDK
• Interaction resume
• Publish to LMS
• Lots more!

Video Encoder ’09

• Brand-new product!
• Convert any video format (QuickTime, Windows Media, etc.) into Flash Video (.FLV)
• Capture & record video with your webcam, then convert to .FLV
• No more hassling with 3rd-party products to convert your videos for use in Articulate products
• Lots more!

So, the #1 question that’s been flooding in practically non-stop since Tuesday night’s release is this: How do I upgrade?

Here’s how to upgrade to Studio ’09:

• New purchases: Visit the Full Versions area of the Articulate Store
• Upgrade purchases: Visit the Upgrades area of the Articulate Store
• Free upgrades: If you’re a Platinum Membership Plan (PMP) customer, you can redeem your Studio Second Edition (Presenter 5, Quizmaker 2, Engage (1st Release)) serial numbers in our new PMP Upgrade Application. Learn how to find your old serial numbers.

And, of course, if you’re not quite ready to upgrade, you can still download a free 30-day trial of all the new products today.

As Tony Karrer predicted and I echoed back in Jaunary, it’s time for “Articulate to dominate in 2008.”

Enjoy these amazing new releases!

A big thank you to our beta testers, without whom these releases would not be as solid as they are, and congrats to the entire Articulate team on a successful product launch!