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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Netscape had massive market share before IE was bundled with windows. Bundling with windows can do excellent things to your market share.
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...
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.
Microsoft kill Adobe? You have to be shitting me.
Sorry, they're big, but not that big.
Adobe are greater than just PDF, for a start. There are numerous professional publications that have moved from Quark Xpress to Indesign of late, and they now own all of the following as well:
* Photoshop, the defacto standard for photo editing software.
* Fireworks (as of the last week), the only serious competition Photoshop has for web developers.
* Illustrator, arguably the industry-standard vector graphics package.
* Freehand, one of the major competitors to Illustrator.
* Dreamweaver, the only thing that has come close to a web development IDE/WYSIWYG editor of any sizable distinction or market share. First person to say "Frontpage" gets laughed at long and loud.
And they won't kill PDF, either. Every single professional printer accepts PDF. When I submit adverts to magazines for publication, they go in as PDFs. When I get proofs back, they come as PDF.
People have a lot of money invested in the PDF infrastructure. If they're doing anything serious with publishing, PDF is it. That won't change just because Microsoft give away a free reader with the OS. Many printers and designers use Apple machines or the occasional Sun machine running the hardware, at least over here. Professional printing is a fuck of a lot more complex than just pressing "print" and having the right drivers installed, and the professionals are already over the hurdles of implementing PDF importing and printing on their (extremely expensive) hardware. Why would they switch?
Microsoft haven't a chance of damaging the professional position PDF has. They should be more worried about whether Adobe will bother to implement import facilities in Indesign for their new format. Which I doubt, as Adobe has money invested in SVG and still doesn't have particularly top-notch SVG import in many of their packages. I suspect they'd have to get in the queue.