This Cnet story isn’t about e-book formats despite mention of PDF. It will be fascinating to see if Adobe promotes the use of Flash–from the newly acquired Macromedia–in e-books. And how will Microsoft respond? I dislike PDF. But I’m all in favor of experimentation with technology that usefully differentiates e-books from p-books.
Detail: Wait. How about Metro? Will this new document format from Microsoft encompass e-books? Anyone out there care to speculate?
Metro is static e-paper – ala PDF 1.0.
HOWEVER, consider that the new Office 12 file formats (including .docx) are based on the EXACT SAME XML+ZIP-based container format as Metro…
Then you have a single file format based on open standards encompasing the richness of Word (styles, reflow, etc.) PLUS a static view (Metro).
Sounds like a winner for eBooks to me…
Leonard
Hi, Leonard. I agree on everything and hope that, while in XML territory, Microsoft can also head in the direction of OpenReader 😉 Like you, I do like the option of a static view, which would be handy for archival purposes. – David