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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."
I think they are a bit late in the game, given that most people are used to PDF and have PDF reader installed already. It's like Firefox, sure it made IE dropped below 90%, that's still a tiny splash and I don't think it will have the chance to become the majority.
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?
No. Royalty-free licensing still allows them to place restrictions. And as for XML, so what? Word documents are in XML format, but the XML only encapsulates a bunch of stuff that's still proprietary and inaccesible. Lastly, the last thing anyone needs is another document format owned by a monopoly.
Adobe fears MS?
They spend nearly $4Billion to buy Macromedia, and MS comes out with the half-crap document format??
Honestly now, someone go slap some sense into Adobe, MS will never be able to make even a dent in Adobe's market share.
There's nothing wrong with PDFs. I can create and open PDFs easily and speedily in OS X with Preview.
Acrobat Reader, however, is like an eighty year old woman behind the wheel of an otherwise useful and speedy automobile. Why does Preview take a a matter of milliseconds to do what takes Acrobat fifteen seconds or more?
Oh yeah, there's no dobut that Metro is going to be Trusted Computing Friendly.
An XML-based PDF-alternative is a good idea. However, a format is not "open" if it is "available for licensing". "Available for licensing" implies that the creator of the format retains some control, and that is not acceptable, no matter who the company is that created the format.
Microsoft seems to have trouble with the concept of "open"; perhaps that's not too surprising, since Sun, traditionally one of the strongest proponents of open systems and formats, has developed trouble in their understanding of "open" as well since they came out with Java.
It doesn't matter if we from the outside can see the complete nuttiness of switching a pdf-based workflow to a MS-the-root-of-all-evil-based workflow. This will succeed, just as Word has succeeded to be the de-facto document standard in every organisation and corporation out there, it's from the same guys who does the rest of the complex shit inside my harddrive. I hear management people saying 'synergetic effects' and we all know what happens when they use that language. Common sense is out the door and stupidity is governor.
Wait...
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
how many Windows based companies end up being a competitor to MS. Then the same company stays and competes in MS's backyard, with their billions of dollars that they can afford to lose, and thinks that they can win! Such companies as Intuit (who has only one product that is profitable; turbo tax), Adobe (who will come under extreme pressures from MS as MS includes more of their new stuff in Windows for free), Oracle/SAP (who will soon be competing against a reved up MS with all sorts of Business software available for free).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
am I wrong in thinking that "Royalty Free" doesn't mean you don't have to pay, just that you don't have to pay per copy - what if it's say $100k to play? then FOSS is SOL
Seriously Microsoft, with your thousands upon thousands of talented (paid) programmers and with the deadline of Longhorn constantly being pushed back, is it at all possible for you to do something that is not
a) Reinventing the wheel
b) Taking someone else's idea and repackaging it
c) 100 steps behind what open source is already doing.
d) Inconsequencal to your only major release, Longhorn.
So what if Longhorn introduces a new document format? Within 5 minutes of running it I bet we'll all find something MS could of spent better their time on.
I don't know if this will catch on or not, and I don't really care.
What bugs me about this is that MS is the largest software company in the world, with a huge research budget, and one of their best ideas is to come up with an alternative to existing de jure standard. Is this really the best use of R & D resources?
Come on people, there are real and interesting problems to be solved in software development and usability...use your powers for good.
Someday a Slashdot ID of 177180 will mean something.
As an end user, I look forward to any replacement to PDFs.
No, you look forward to a replacement for Adobe's PDF Reader. PDF the format is wonderful -- just look at it's support on Mac OS X.
The reason government agencies (and many many others) use it is because it's the best, most open, best-supported format of it's kind. There is absolutely no requirement that you use Adobe's software to read or write PDF.
try not using the fucking bloated reader you moron. BTW.. some people like having documents in a none editable, "what you see on one platform is what you see on all platforms" document.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
You know, sucky products I could deal with. It's their business practices I can't stand.
If they weren't so underhanded and evil we wouldn't have to deal with their sucky products, because market forces would have either killed them or forced them to not suck.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, mostly it's designed to spreat FUD. The aim is to stop people from investing in Adobe. Why would you do that if Microsoft may come along in some years and do a Netscape on them. They will weaken them with insinuation etc. etc. As long as they are able to get away with transferring their monopoly in one product (the O/S) into illegal monopolies in others with no reaction from competition authorities, this will be an effective strategy against anything except for free software.
It is a good idea to be wary of licenses that are royalty free. Every document that has a license, free or not, allows Microsoft, or any company that owns that license to have a foothold in your life.
You don't have to pay for MetroReader version 1 or 2, but MetroReader version 3 might not be free, and they also might change the format slightly, and suddenly you're a Word '97 user in a Word 2000 world.
And then guess what? You have to wait for OpenMetro to reverse engineer the format so you can read Metro documents without MetroReader, because Microsoft decided not to freely license the format to Sun Microsystems.
PDF is here, it's open, it works well, it's already integrated into many businesses, and regardless of how much you hate Adobe Reader, the format itself is good. There's no reason to switch.
The splash screen to Win2K is a bitmap obviously blown up by 200% or so.
Slow down, turbo.
The splash screen is displayed before the video driver is loaded, hense the lack of color depth and resolution.
If you're gunna flame, check your facts first.
A speech...
So tell me how this is going to work in a Studio-print environment.
You've got all of these Mac operators, busily using Adobe Indesign and sending print ads out to magazines and newspapers in the required eps or hi-res PDF format (that MUST be generated by original Adobe products for QA purposes). Then along comes Metro and this somehow competes with Adobe.
How? Adobe make no money from Adobe reader and for the creation of PDF's for the non-publishing industry there have been numerous free (gratis) and/or alternative tools for years. Is Microsoft going to create a killer design tool as well? And for the Mac to boot, coz those graphic artists aint going to swap.
No. What will happen is this becomes just another Microsoft feature that no other platform/tool will be able to support and we will have yet another reader that we have to load up...
Firstly, Microsoft was dealing with a universal format - HTML. Sure, they may have buggered it up or extended it, but BOTH Netscape and Microsoft needed to deal with that format. In this case, Microsoft is trying to introduce a new format that noone has adopted yet. I don't think it's going to fly - people have too much invested in Adobe's PDF and PS formats.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
build it right deep into the os and ms is settled
Or is this? I just start to wonder how paid Microsoft PR people are here on Slashdot with the aim to push such articles trough? Because OS X is out? Because Apple is gaining ground?
:)
I just wonder
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I expect that an alpha version of "Shorthorn" will get pushed out the door in December just to justify claims that it was ready in 2006. The only way for MS to gain marketshare over PDF would be to leverage their desktop monopoly to break into that new market currently occupied by PDF.
Even if the licensing were just a rubberstamp issue (which it probably isn't) with MS giving the nod till all who request it (which it probably won't), dealing with the paperwork is an unreasonable hurdle and PDF still wins. Publishing is about reaching your audience and that's where a freely available, documented format like PDF comes in. Yes, it's owned by Adobe, but anyone can implement a writer or a reader. Metro fails on that due to licensing restrictions.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
OT -
Actually, I would take the "one project boss" if I got to choose. He only fails one project. The other projects can be delegated to someone else by management.
The million project guy on the other hand obfuscates the resources really needed, which is bad for management because they then start other projects. I bet he also hands out tasks to subordinates and won't listen when they say it is impossible to do with the time allocated, so he makes employees life hell too. So he fails a million projects where some of them might have been saved.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
OK...for you kiddies out there; Way back in the 90s, Adobe charged an arm and a leg for Postscript ($1,000/printer) and Postscript fonts were expensive. Apple complained. Microsoft complained. Everyone buying a printer complained or wished for a cheap Postscript printer so !!#@$!$ would look right when they printed. Adobe held firm.
Apple decided along with Microsoft to change part of the problem...Postscript fonts. Jointly, they developed TrueType. Adobe held firm...till it was obvious that Postscript was in danger. Rates fell on Poscript licences, though it was too late and TrueType fonts became dominate.
Adobe retrenched and created the Postscript offshoot PDF...and documents became printable and portable again. Adobe became more involved in the detailed document creation process.
Fast forward to now. Microsoft (by themselves) are attempting to complete the job and take Adobe out of the document creation picture. It's not going to be hard for Microsoft to do it this time. Expect a suite of Metro document editing and processing tools from Microsoft around the time Longhorn is released.
The only gift in this? You now have a year and a half to two years to plan.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
The question is will it be available for Linux like Acrobat is?
The blah.jpg.bat was a result of Microsoft assuming users didn't need to see file extensions that it knows what to do with, and hide it from the user. By hiding the file extention, the file actually looks like blah.jpg. which looks like an image to just about anyone. Hiding file extensions is my #1 pet peeve about windows.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Because the PDF format is so open, the entire print industry uses it. Most of the stuff you read in dead tree form was once a PDF. There are several ISO standards for print-ready PDF files, such as PDF/X1a:2003.
Many printers ( not the thing on your desk, the companies that print stuff ) have automated workflows built on PDF. You shovel single-page PDFs in one end, and software that understands that open PDF format looks into each file, determines its page number, places that single-page PDF on a digital "sheet" with other single pages ( called an imposition ), and sends it to a machine that makes printing plates. That platemaker understands the open PDF format and is able to image that "sheet" directly to a plate that is mounted on the press. Automated, without costly human hand-holding made possible because many pieces of software from many companies that are not named Adobe can program to an open standard.
PDF files can also contain JDF data. JDF is XML-based, and it can communicate ( or will communicate ) with many types of printing plant machinery. For example, many printers have robotic paper loading systems, so that imaginary job above that is PDF can tell the paper robot to load the specific paper for that job so that when the plates are loaded on the press, the press can begin printing. The JDF data within that PDF can also tell the paper cutter how to cut the sheets, and/or tell a folder how to fold the sheets.
All this because of how open the PDF format is. And Metro is going to replace all this, particularly with the momentum PDF already has? I think Metro is just a fancy WMF. Microsoft really needs to copy Apple on this and use PDF instead. Talk about NIH.