ZDnet article here. Microsoft sees PDF as a major threat but thinks it can fight back with its own Metro. Hah! It isn’t as if Adobe will necessarily stand still.
If Adobe goes for open standards for e-books and other documents, it could make mincemeat of Microsoft in those product categories. Remember, format is just one detail. It’s the apps that count, too. And with increasing hints of open-mindedness from Adobe’s people, the apps side of Microsoft would be smart to embrace, not fight, disruption. Releasing a new proprietary format will be just another sign that Redmond can’t look past the tired status quo in its eagerness to protect Windows.
It’s a shame from an OpenReader perspective. Microsoft’s existing e-book format is actually a zillion times closer to XMLish Web standards than PDF, and under Dick Brass, a former executive there, the company actually distinguished itself as an advocate of open standards in this area. Oh, well. It looks as if Adobe just might fill the void sooner or later, if Bill McCoy’s personal thoughts are a sign of things to come.
A sign of Microsoft’s folly: Check out this excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article that inspired the ZDNet one:
Though Office uses important Web technologies, it “is not yet the source of key Web data formats” such as PDF, a technology from Adobe Systems Inc. for handling electronic documents.
Mr. Ozzie doesn’t define specifically what kind of services and software the company will create, but emphasizes that they will be “seamless” — designed for the current environment in which users move between PCs, laptops, hand-held computers, cellphones and videogame consoles. Such a seamless operating system, for example, would “deploy software automatically and as appropriate to all of your devices,” Mr. Ozzie wrote.
So seamlessness counts in that context? OK. Now let’s apply the logic to digital publications. Wouldn’t a standardized XMLish format make things less complicated for publishers and consumers alike, especially as more and more consider OS alternatives to Windows? If Microsoft wants to protect Windows, let it do so on the merits of the OS itself–as opposed to sacrificing e-books and other apps to promote the Mother Ship.
The bigger picture: More than ever, I think that Washington did the Microsoft shareholders a gigantic disservice in not forcing the company to split into one part for Windows and the other for the apps. Gates and friends, unless they wise up, will pay the price in e-books and many other areas. If he really wants to return Microsoft and MSFT shares to their former glory, he’ll create his own “disruption” rather than fixating on the proprietary approach. I just bought an XP desktop, but if Microsoft continues its eagerness to associate an e-book format with its OS and if it goes ahead with other gotchas such as monitor-based DRM, my next machine may well be a Linux box or a Mac. Hey, no anti-Microsoft jihad here. I’m just looking out for myself as an end user, and I supsect that many other users will feel the same.
