Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Adobe Threatens Microsoft With Suit

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the waving-a-big-stick-around dept.

lseltzer writes "Adobe has threatened an antitrust suit against Microsoft, over PDF writing in Office 2007. Adobe wants Microsoft to separate the feature and charge extra for it. Microsoft has agreed to remove PDF writing, but won't charge extra." From the eWeek article: "In February, Adobe Chief Executive Bruce Chizen told Reuters he considered Microsoft to be the company's biggest concern. 'The competitor I worry about most is Microsoft,' Chizen said at the time. Adobe's PDF technology lets producers create and distribute documents digitally that retain designs, pictures and formatting. "

3 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Playing Devil's Advocate here by ajs318 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The script "ps2pdf" has been part of the Ghostscript package installed on every Linux, Solaris and BSD system for a long time.

    What do Adobe think of that?

    --
    Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
  2. Re:What's sauce for Apple isn't sauce for Microsof by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Informative

    Neither. Microsoft said they *think* Adobe will want to sue them, and so Microsoft is releasing preemptive FUD against Adobe.
    Regards,
    Steve

  3. Re:What's the Correct One? by RemovableBait · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, I thought this was pretty odd too, until I remebered about one of the Vista 'features' that Microsoft were pushing a while back.

    Microsoft are developing a competitor to PDF, codenamed 'Metro', that allows all the same functions as PDF as well as being integrated with the Vista printing system (much like Mac OS X's 'Print as PDF'). They also demonstrated it (I think at WinHEC 2005) printing direct to 'Metro-enabled' printers with a noticeable quality boost. They later renamed the format 'XPS' and it is present in the current Office 2007 builds.

    I think this is typical style Microsoft FUD to make it look like Adobe wants them to drop PDF, when actually, it's MS that wants rid of PDF in order to promote its XPS format. Despite PDF's strong foothold, integration of XPS within the widest used operating system and widest used office suite could change things. I reckon this is MS saying "sorry, not our fault you have to use our format!".