Facing the threat of a lawsuit from Adobe, Microsoft confirmed over the weekend that it will remove the feature allowing Office 2007 applications to save files in PDF format.
This latest move from Microsoft stems from a breakdown in negotiations between the Windows operating system developer and Adobe, after Microsoft announced late last year that it would include PDF publishing support in Office 2007. This feature was one of the most anticipated by users, according to Microsoft. While other office application suites fully support this feature, Microsoft Office was the only one that did not.
However, Adobe was not satisfied with this move from Microsoft. As a result, a dispute has arisen between the two companies over the past four months, said Brad Smith, head of Microsoft’s legal team.
Although PDF is an open standard format and has been fully supported by OpenOffice and Mac OS X, Adobe sees Office 2007 as a threat to its business.
Adobe wants Microsoft to pay for including PDF support in Office. Microsoft has outright rejected this request. Lawyer Smith stated that Adobe has threatened to sue Microsoft in Europe. However, Microsoft is prepared for the possibility of being sued.
Instead of direct support, Microsoft will provide PDF support in Office as an additional feature. Users will be allowed to download this feature through the developer’s website.
Alongside the removal of PDF support, Microsoft will also proactively eliminate the XPS format—designed to compete with PDF—from Office 2007 and Windows Vista.
Instead, Microsoft will offer a version of Windows Vista that includes built-in XPS support, codenamed “Metro.” This version has already been presented by Microsoft at TechEd 2006.
Meanwhile, analysts believe that Microsoft’s story may not be complete. Adobe has yet to comment on this information and may not want to publicly disclose its intention to sue.
“I don’t believe Adobe wants Microsoft to raise the price of Office. If PDF can no longer be used for free, it means that PDF will no longer be an open standard,” asserted Joe Wilcox, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research.
Meanwhile, Microsoft hopes Adobe will realize that they have made a mistake. “Adobe should know they cannot sue users of an open standard.”
Hoàng Dũng
