MarTech Minute: Airtable’s student release, Adobe’s uptime message

THEY HAVE A PLAN. Adobe sent a note to customers of its platforms yesterday saying the COVID-19 pandemic has not disrupted its platforms and said it has disaster plans in place to maintain uptime for automation platform Marketo Engage and its commerce platform Magento. To put simply, the company said the cloud-based infrastructure for both of those platforms is spread across several global locations and vendors to ensure uptime. Why we care. Frankly, we know there are plenty of tools out there, but if Marketo or Magento go down, it would grind a lot of us to a halt even more than this crisis has already.

STUDENT EDITION: Airtable is making a version of its smart spreadsheeting product available for students who find themselves participating in distance learning as the COVID-19 disaster shuts schools. The company said it had planned to launch a version for students, but the pandemic caused it to accelerate the release. Why we care. Airtable is one of the hottest movers in martech right now, and bringing students into its user base will only heat things up. Source: Airtable

CHAT RESPONSE. Major digital consultancy Perficient this weekend said it will make available a chatbot solution by Drift that its hospital and health plan clients can use to help assess inquiries health care facilities are receiving about the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the companies, the bot asks visitors questions about exposure, symptoms, and risk to help sort the urgency of each case. Why we care. Chatbot experiences can vary from intuitive to downright frustrating, but as the pandemic is causing such a widespread need for information, these tools may end up being crucial to managing the influx in a range of industries. On the other hand, they can fail and be forever tarnished. No pressure. Source: Perficient