Comments on: Office, Vista changed in wake of Adobe threat

Microsoft is tweaking its updates to Office and Windows in part to head off a legal challenge over use of PDF technology.

[TV James]

Bad Marketing

Even though it was static, the city I used to live in offered "mini-websites" for about six other languages all in PDF's because it could be programmed by someone who knew Word. (English and Spanish were standard.)

This whole issue all because Adobe is unsure how to get people to continue buying the full version of Acrobat if they can create basic PDFs. So instead, they'll go after Microsoft because screwing with Microsoft is in vogue, or they'll try to use Microsoft to come after us because we are already paying for Microsoft software. (Maybe Microsoft should offer 25 center per copy of Office shipped with the "Save As PDF..." option.) Or maybe it's so that they can later sue if XPS ever gains any traction saying that it's monopolistic because XPS is built into Vista and PDF isn't.

This is a problem of their own making. For most people, a PDF is nothing more than a preservation of formatting. They know nothing of the interactivity (mostly form-based, right? Not sure myself.) that can be accomplished with the PDF format if used in an interactive format with the server code behind it.

Why? Because:

(1) the full version costs so much many haven't purchased it

(2) the full version is such a user-unfriendly engineered piece of dreck with a horrid learning curve and a hauntingly bad user-interface that prevents people from really understanding its full power

If Adobe would get a clue, they would realize that the easier it is to make PDFs, the easier it is to spread the format. They just need to figure out how to market the full version and monetize the free reader. Maybe they could do like Opera and put banner ads in it and offer a $5 or $10 enhanced reader that doesn't have ads.

[opine]

Finally, somebody said it!

Yes!!!

Why ARE adobe products so expensive and hard to use??? For some specialized niche-market tools, it is somewhat understandable, but why would I pay $200 to create a PDF that COULD do all of this wonderful stuff...if only I had the time to take the tutorial, read the manual, and phone a friend? Don't even get me started on Photoshop or Premier...those products just plain reduced me to tears.

I hope Adobe doesn't touch the interfaces of the interfaces of the Macromedia products.

[just_some_guy]

Agree

"(1) the full version costs so much many haven't purchased it

(2) the full version is such a user-unfriendly engineered piece of dreck with a horrid learning curve and a hauntingly bad user-interface that prevents people from really understanding its full power
"


You could be talking about any Adobe product. :)

[Dachi]

MS would be better off as 2 companies

Bummer, native PDF support was one of the only features I was looking forward to in Vista.

Not that they are being forced not to include it Adobe reader is going to continue to run in in system tray on millions of machines nagging the users to download plug-in they don't need or want.

It is sad that a company with a monopoly on PDF software can use antitrust as an excuse to prevent MS from competing against them.

People say MS got off easy by not being split up by the courts, but I disagree.

They are allowed to bundle notepad, solitaire, calculator, and paint. ANY other product they chose to include with Windows leaved them in the cross hairs of the courts.

I think if they were split into 2 smaller, more versatile companies that are legally allowed to actually release products they would be better off.

Sounds like Adobe is scared to compete

Its a shame that companies like Adobe need to go running to their lawyers to try to prevent competition. MS is doing nothing wrong by creating a new portable format, or by adding PDF generation to their software (for which a lot of people have been clamoring for years). Adobe, on the other hand, is just trying to maintain its position not by offering superior products, but by litigation. I definately come away from this with less respect for adobe.

[technewsjunkie]

Anyone NOT afraid to compete with MS is stupid

History shows it.

Get real.

[shredderman2]

PDF Adobe - So is it an open standard or not??

The real interesting question then is whether PDF is an open standard offered on royalty-free terms as Adobe claims. If so, why are they asking M$ for royalties to implement while others are implementin for free a supposed open standard? Keep it real Adobe.

[ChazzMatt]

exactly

Adobe is the bad guy in this -- for once Microsoft is clean. (I can't believe I just said that.)

Adobe has been touting Acrobat as open standard that ANYONE and their brother can create and use -- oh, but not Microsoft! As a reasult, all these Office suite competitors have it -- with Adobe's blessing because it's an open standard. Now they are carping because Microsoft wants to joing the party?

[jmarsh75]

Down w/ PDF

I have long been frustrated w/ the behavior of PDFs. It's slow, klugey, limited, and the auto-updating format is endlessly frustrating as it seems to hang the program repeatedly. This is one instance where I'd be glad to see the 300 lb gorilla M$ squash the competition, because frankly, the PDF format is just not a very impressive.

[R. U. Sirius]

Sure...

Care to provide examples? And BTW, I guess in your world MS software is just the shining example of software design.

How much MS stock do you own?

[Stan Johnson]

Adobe is hurting PDF format

All this only hurts Adobe and the PDF format.

It looks like Adobe is doing everything they can to insure the success of Microsoft's XPS format.

[rcrusoe]

the PDF format is secure

The PDF format was adopted as a standard by most
governments, financial institutions, and businesses many years
ago. These squabbles between Adobe and Microsoft over whose
is bigger won't change that.

Adobe published the PDF specification years ago and gave their
permission for anyone's software to make and use PDF files (as
long as they follow the specification). This means the format wil
be in use as long as anyone wants to use it.

Regardless of the results of this case, no one is going to drop
PDF in favor of MS XPS.

[smfriedland]

Office, Vista

XPS is called by some analysts as a PDF killer not becasuse of any inherent technical advantage that it might possess. Rather its called that because of the vast number of IT workers which will push a Microsoft product on the corporations they work for without regard to that product's quality. So, if you will, it has an enormous advantage because of that. Since the largest number of PDF documents are simple ones - Microsoft is going after that market knowing that dominating it will allow it to strangle out PDF capabilities over time.

Embrace, extend, and extinguish is still in full force.

[dysonl]

Welcome competition!

Working with PDF documents and the Reader is often frustrating. The technology bloated, buggy and full of annoyances. For instance, with certain PDF documents, the zoom factor is reset everytime I move to another page! Also, when will they ever get the selection and pasting of text to other application right (I still get retarded results more often than not)?!

Due to lack of competition, Adobe is slacking, not providing any significant innovation to PDF technology for years.

I'm glad there will be a competing format!

[Peter Bonte]

PDF is for printing

The main reason for the PDF format is its use in the printing
world, machines are made PDF capable and the whole workflow
is pure PDF based. It took years to reach this integration and
innovating it every year isn't per-se a good thing, on the
contrary. Its build into printers, what was MS thinking when they
made a 'PDF killer"?

osX embraced the technology and integrated it, PDF printing and
fast viewing is available systemwide for many years now. Just
make a better PDF viewer and get over it, MS can't dominate
every market.

[btljooz]

I HATE PDF!!!

Why?

My puter won't run Adobe Reader.

PDF is clumsy to use.

PDF is not secure. Look at all the recent governmental 'leaks' by PDF being copied and pasted.

Going to a website and being forced to download a PDF file just to get information that could/should have have been put in HTML is simply SENSELESS and an incovenience to Readers of that website.

Could go on, but I think you get my point ;)

[Joanna Choong]

Stupid Users

If the PDF is not secure, it's not the PDF's fault, it's the author's fault.

By default, if you convert files to PDF, it is not secure, you can delete pages, copy text, print etc.

But with setting of password security, digital signatures, and digital certificates nicely available in Acrobat, you can restrict printing, restrict editing, copying etc. Advance security would be with the Adobe Policy Server, you can even set expiry dates on the PDF. If that idiot knows that this PDF is to be made public, he had better secure it. If it's not, then it's his fault.

Information in HTML? Try printing that out. You get crappy spacing, fonts and tabs. But with PDF, what you see is what you get as you print it. Plus, if I already have the information in another copy, I can just convert them into PDF and upload to the website instead of coding it in or copy, cut and paste into HTML, whatever. Then I don't need to worry about whether it'll fit a 800x600 or 1024x768 or whatever that's 'best viewed'.

It's not a technology problem, it's user problem. As always.

[samkass]

Is this story even true?

There's not a single statement from Adobe in this entire article.
And strange it comes out just when Microsoft is trying to push
their new PDF competitor. It looks like just a propaganda
campaign on Microsoft's part. Microsoft is only saying they're
expecting to be sued, not that Adobe has done anything except
try to negotiate some money for Microsoft to use a library Adobe
wrote.

I personally think Microsoft's pretty much making the whole
thing up, and c|net doesn't have the resources to fact-check a
story.

[anarchyreigns]

Seriously, you are....

Seriously man, you are retarded.

[firstlast]

Metro

So they will again improve their monopoly with Metro format and remove support for PDF :(
---
Pixel image editor - http://www.kanzelsberger.com

[ChazzMatt]

Adobe is full of liars

"Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote last year in a letter to a Massachusetts state senator. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."



http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=188701361

[ChazzMatt]

Adobe is full of liars

"Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote last year in a letter to a Massachusetts state senator. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."



http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=188701361

[ChazzMatt]

sorry for the multiple posts

kept getting error message from CNET that "page could not be found" whenever I posted, so I thought it wasn't posting. So, I kept trying until it successsfully completed.

[samkass]

...or Microsoft is

Why do you assume that a one-sided article without any comments or perspective from the other side, whose only source is Microsoft's PR department is completely true and unbiased?

[ChazzMatt]

Adobe is full of liars

"Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote last year in a letter to a Massachusetts state senator. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."



http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=188701361

[ChazzMatt]

Adobe is full of liars

"Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote last year in a letter to a Massachusetts state senator. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."



http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=188701361

[ChazzMatt]

Adobe is full of liars

"Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote last year in a letter to a Massachusetts state senator. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=188701361

[ChazzMatt]

Adobe is full of liars

"Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote last year in a letter to a Massachusetts state senator. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=188701361

[zeldathez]

Double Standard Not Open Standard

Open standards should truly be open, not opportunistically closed when it is adopted by a competitor.

But it is important to remember that Adobe is an open, yet proprietary, specification. It publishes the specs for its PDF versions (see the 1200+ page PDF 1.6 Developers Manual).

According to Adobe, the PDF specification remains under Adobe?s control so it can be quickly adapted to meet new needs, such as the bar-code capability recently added.

That's great, go Adobe go. But don't claim openness, receive all of the goodwill of being open, and then be closed while still trying to be open. Open or closed...which is it?

[ChazzMatt]

Adobe says one thing, but does opposite

Microsoft associate general counsel Horacio Gutierrez: "We've been discussing this for several weeks, and of course have been partners for many years, but talks have now ended. It concerns Office and the "save as" feature. In the end we agreed to remove the features and make them downloadable by customers, but Adobe felt this was not enough.

Gutierrez said: "They want us to charge our customers even though pdf is a royalty-free license - it's free in Star Office, in Open Office and in Apple, so we'd be the only ones charging for it.

"We expect a legal letter from them but their position differs 180 degrees from previous public statements."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/05/microsoft_adobe_legal_spat/print.html


and this is one of the previous statements:


"Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote last year in a letter to a Massachusetts state senator. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j

[ChazzMatt]

Adobe says one thing, but does the opposite

Microsoft associate general counsel Horacio Gutierrez: "We've been discussing this for several weeks, and of course have been partners for many years, but talks have now ended. It concerns Office and the "save as" feature. In the end we agreed to remove the features and make them downloadable by customers, but Adobe felt this was not enough.

Gutierrez said: "They want us to charge our customers even though pdf is a royalty-free license - it's free in Star Office, in Open Office and in Apple, so we'd be the only ones charging for it.

"We expect a legal letter from them but their position differs 180 degrees from previous public statements."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/05/microsoft_adobe_legal_spat/print.html

and THIS is one of the previous statements:

"Adobe publishes the PDF standard in its entirety and makes it available for free, without restrictions, to anyone who cares to use it," Adobe Senior Director of Public Policy Michael Engelhardt wrote last year in a letter to a Massachusetts state senator. "No one needs permission from Adobe to build their own product with the PDF standard."

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j