MS to take on Adobe

[Duo Maxwell]

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1815904564;fp;2;fpid;1

The next version of Windows will include a new document format, code-named "Metro," to print and share documents, Microsoft said Monday. Metro appears to rival Adobe Systems's PostScript and PDF (portable document format) technologies.

Metro was demonstrated during Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates' keynote at the start of the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) on Monday in Seattle.  

The format, based on XML (extensible markup language), will be licensed royalty free and users will be able to open Metro files without a special client. In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft's Web browser.  

Printers and printer drivers can include support for Metro and deliver better and faster printing results than with today's printing technology, Microsoft said. On stage, a Xerox Corp. printer with Metro built in was used to print a sample slide.  

The Metro technology is likely to go head-to-head with Adobe's PostScript technology. "It is a potential Adobe killer," said Richard Doherty, research director with The Envisioneering Group in Seaford, New York. "But this is just the first warning shot. Adobe could put something that is even more compelling [on top of] Longhorn."  

Aside from the first showing of Metro, Gates on Monday ushered in what he called the third decade of Windows computing with the release of 64-bit versions of Windows and talked up the next Windows release, code-named Longhorn, due late next year.

[mobrien_12]

"Licenced Royalty-Free," harumph.  How much you wanna bet that the licence, like MS stupid sender-id plan, will exclude open source?

Same old same old.... MS sees a competitor, MS bundles competing product into the operating system.  And the DOJ under the Bush administration gave them a lifetime pass to do this.

[Calum]

users will be able to open Metro files without a special client.

so... i won't need *any* additional software to see these files? this leads me to believe the files themselves are executable, and somehow contain the ability to show documents on a variety of platforms. I do not see how a viewerless file format will be able to rival pdfs.

In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft's Web browser.

wait, wait, wait. so it *does* need a client, and that client is internet explorer! this of course excludes all systems without internet explorer installed, some macs and all non-windows systems, basically. and i won't hold my breath waiting for somebody to reverse engineer a metro client for linux/bsd etc etc etc...

[themacuser]

It's never going to work.

Reverse-engineering won't be necessary - I thought they were going make it open...

[Aloone_Jonez]

They'll make it open at first, then when it's popular enough they'll close it.

[Refalm]

They'll make it open at first, then when it's popular enough they'll close it.

Embrace extend extinguish.

[Kintaro]

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/print/metro.mspx

There is the specification, its an EXE, im downloading it and ill check it out.

[Kintaro]

so... i won't need *any* additional software to see these files? this leads me to believe the files themselves are executable, and somehow contain the ability to show documents on a variety of platforms. I do not see how a viewerless file format will be able to rival pdfs. wait, wait, wait. so it *does* need a client, and that client is internet explorer! this of course excludes all systems without internet explorer installed, some macs and all non-windows systems, basically. and i won't hold my breath waiting for somebody to reverse engineer a metro client for linux/bsd etc etc etc...

http://web.aanet.com.au/kintaro/images/LinuxIE.jpg