In an unusual display of collaboration between competitors, Adobe says it will use the industry coalition and notification system launched by Microsoft two years ago to give selected security technology vendors early information about the security updates it releases for its products.

Adobe will become the first software company other than Microsoft to use the system to deliver early security information. Known as the Microsoft Active Protections Program, or MAPP, the system is designed to give companies including antivirus, intrusion detection and firewall vendors a head start to defend against the hackers who reverse-engineer publicly released security updates to exploit the vulnerabilities they're designed to fix.

"Instead of spending the months or years it would take to recreate our own version of MAPP, we're able to go from zero to 60 by working closely with Microsoft, and very rapidly getting to the point where we're tapping into the maturity of the active protection program that's in place today," said Brad Arkin, senior director of product security and privacy at Adobe.

Dave Forstrom, director in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group, said the company ultimately hopes to sign up additional software companies to join itself and Adobe in using the system to deliver alerts. He called it "exciting that another ubiquitous software company is making this commitment to customers, and being able to shift the landscape like that."

The companies are making the announcement this morning at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.

Microsoft in recent years has been praised for security improvements, but in recent weeks the company has come under increased criticism from some in the industry who have raised questions about the way the company treats outside researchers who find vulnerabilities in its programs. In a blog post last week, Microsoft called for a more coordinated industry effort to ensure that vulnerabilities are disclosed in a manner that protects technology users.