Whatever the industry standard in the future, I hope it becomes FULLY open, with lots of competition on the software the can open/edit/save/print/transform the particular document format.

Any possible format that is proprietary to Microsoft or to Adobe, is something I'd rather not have.

I mean, not have another proprietary format from them.

Formats should be open.

They can keep their software proprietary if they like, but document exchange format should be open to all.

I'm glad Microsoft finally added support for pdf but I see it as a one way street. I create my document and then convert it to pdf so other people who don't have Word can read it.

I usually delete the pdf after though since I rather just keep the orignal word document and the fact that it always looks better then the pdf file.

"Adobe Preps Response to Microsoft XPS"

Catchy headline, but it couldn't be more wrong. Adobe's been looking at this since long before MS announced XPS. See http://blogs.adobe.com/s...12/mission_to_mars.html

Adobe understands that PDF being a proprietary format is a barrier to entry for people that want to make small changes to an existing PDF or extract specific information from a PDF. That’s why, in the past they’ve made toolkits to help people perform tasks such as merge data into a PDF and get data out of a PDF. These toolkits (like all new toolkits) have a learning curve, so while the barrier to entry is reduced, it is not removed.

By now, everyone in IT knows that XML is the silver bullet to make all file formats interoperable. OK, maybe that’s overstating it a bit but it does lower the barrier to entry by allowing you to use your own tools to parse any file format in XML. All major languages have either built-in facilities or readily available libraries for reading and writing XML.

With all due respect to Jim King and Chip Brown, it doesn't take a genius to put these two facts together and wonder whether a PDF format based on XML would make it an even more attractive technology to potential Adobe customers.

Likewise, I’m sure MS didn’t sit down and say “Let’s kill PDF”. They had a need similar to the need PDF is addressing and they built a solution. When two solutions are trying to address similar needs it’s not unusual for the solutions to end up looking similar.

Just because two solutions are similar doesn’t mean that one was built as a response to the other.

Good points, and not only is PDF ubiquitous, but has a halo effect with regard to secure file sharing. Much like the industrial accident called OXML, XPS won't be widely used for quite some time, if ever. So Mars is a very welcome move.

okay.
a totally unrelated question, but why does pdf files load up so fast in my mac, and slow on windows, (acrobat reader, or other pdf readers)

Maybe because MacOS has integrated PDF support, and Windows doesn't (Adobe even threatened with suing Microsoft if native PDF support was shipped in Office 2007).

Hey a note to everyone praying that Adobe is sent to the s*** house by Microsoft on this one, do you think that if MS had come out with it first and had no REAL competition it would be any different.

While I'm glad that Adobe is getting some competition at last I'm not hoping they get white washed cause I know MS would be no different. Instead I hope that they end up battling for the indusry over the long term as this always helps the consumers (THAT'S US).

Sigh. I have long history of using Adobe products and when they came out with Acrobat is when they blew it. It had the potential to be the face of the web when the web was in it's infancy. It had all the functionality and looked much better than what could be displayed with a web browser. Intead they focused on selling their authoring environment to professionals and the print industry.

PDF have a lot of cool functiomality but the idea is kind of obsolete these days. The format doesn't scale for any plaform. I read a lot of ebooks and spend a lot of time recreating PDFs as lit files that I can read on my desktop as well my PDA/Phone.

I hate Adobe because of their Photoshop upgrades (I still use 7 because all CS has to offer is auto-image alignments for panaoramas).
I hate them because of their auto-update functionality and Adobe bridge and a bunch of crap they make you intsall you don't want.

Microsofts XAML on the other hand is what XML was supposed to be all along. A way of seperating the data from the style so both are universally interchangeable and dynamically manipulatable.

"Microsofts XAML on the other hand is what XML was supposed to be all along. A way of separating the data from the style so both are universally interchangeable and dynamically manipulatable."

I'm glad you believe this. BTW, I have a lovely bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.

Whenever you have content that is to be presented in multiple ways you have to choose whether the content drives the presentation or the presentation drives the content. There’s lots of middle ground but it’s full of compromises. HTML is on the “content drives presentation” end. This means that it is able to adapt the presentation to a variety of devices however the presentation tends to suffer. PDF is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The presentation is locked and the device adapts to the presentation (allowing you to zoom in and out but not rearranging the content). The presentation looks the same everywhere however.

Both approaches have their place. PDF is what it is and is very good at what it does. The people who created your eBooks in PDF format probably weren’t intending that you should read them on a phone or PDA. IMO, it’s them you should be b****ing at.

I never liked Adobe. You wanna download some updates for Adobe Acrobat Reader? Well, first you need to download our Adobe Download Manager. And you need to download the Adobe Internet tool bar and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

But then that emotion of dislike turned into the emotion of despise when they bought Macromedia ... but that's another story.

I'm just crossing my fingers that Microsoft kicks their asses. At least Microsoft releases sturdy and reliable products.

Adobe's software, at least the reader does suck. I mean when a third party can make something better, that runs faster and actually crashes less, then adobe has some issues. I havent used the version 8 but I have no doubt its not much better.

I still hope Microsoft's version takes off. I always hated Adobe's buggy, bloaded (Acrobat and the PDF's them-self's) and just crappy software. I think it's about time they get some compatition. I'm also mad at them buying out Macromedia.

Then you haven't been using Adobe Acrobat Pro 8, then. It's fast, more customizable than any previous version, and starts in less than one second. Reader I don't know about — doesn't everyone just use Foxit for reading PDFs?

Actually I really don't really care about making PDF's, so I wouldn't need the Pro version. I wouldn't really want to pay for Acrobat anyway.

I do use Foxit though. It small, fast and doesn't leave any footprints behind.