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Microsoft to Introduce PDF competitor 'Metro'
RustNeverSleeps writes "Computerworld reports that Microsoft will be including a new document format called 'Metro' with Longhorn. Apparently, Metro is intended to be a competitor to Adobe's PDF and Postscript formats. The format will be open and available for royalty-free licensing, and will be based on XML. Can we expect Microsoft to do this right? If they do, I think it could be a good thing." Reader gsfprez is less optimistic: "... I noticed the main, and probably most important difference between old and busted PDF and new-hotness Metro (besides the Queer Eye styled name)... 'We will offer products based on this next generation RIP technology and make them available under license to printer manufacturers and software integrators worldwide.' Yes, I can see it now - entire industries undoing their time-tested, battle hardend PDF-based workflows with free and open files all for the chance to use patented, pay-for-use Microsoft proprietary workflows, software, and files. Good luck with that, guys."
Or maybe that's the plan.
Christ, Microsoft is like my boss - he takes on a million projects and finishes none.
Why has it become to stylish to be Metro now?
Conked (W3C-CSS), Embrace (WinMedia-DRM), Hijack (MIT-Kerberos), engulf (Active Directory), and discard (NetBEUI).
How about open, free (as in beer) for a change?
Exactly. My one and only problem with Microsoft is that they suck at everything they do. Other than that, it is a pretty cool company.
Reminds me of a quote:
"The one time Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, it'll probably be a vaccuum cleaner"
"Yes, a PDF reader exists....but for the love of god, it's the most bloated, slow, nag-infested document viewers I've ever used, and it only seems to get worse with each version."
Wow, those are pretty strong things to say about Ghostview.
8^)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
A program that will likely run slower and crash more often than Acrobat is exactly what I needed in my life.
Yes, you aren't not wrong about not having to pay royalaties.
Microsoft - Reinventing the wheel, one program at a time.
Correct except for the "Coming soon:".
One of Adobe's flagship products (bonus points for naming the other),
... TypeStyler!
IntelliDraw? PageMaker? umm.... LiveMotion? wait, wait, it's
Dunno. I give up.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Yeah, I think it would be cool if someone made an XML based display format.
Even cooler, it should be design for use on the internet with features like hyperlinks and embedded objects. That would be cool! And we wouldn't have to worry about different implementations rendering things differently, since it would be an open standard that anyone could implement! We could even use those XML documents to help us mini-applications or even entire UI structures. That would be boss!
Someone should really make some XML standards like that.