Microsoft: Legal issues around PDF support

Posted on June 7, 2006
Filed Under Companies, Open Source |

I have held off on commenting about the recent flap between Adobe and Microsoft regarding PDF Save in Office. After reading more about this on Brian Jones blog. The entire dustup does throw cold water on the notion that PDF is an open standard when Adobe can make demands on publishers that they charge for it when integrated but offer it for free otherwise. Secondly, it seems rather hypocritical of Adobe to say now that they don’t want “save to PDF” in office as a standard feature when they have been crying foul for years that Microsoft wouldn’t support the file format.

It would appear that a possible motivation behind Adobe’s move is to throw up a roadblock for Microsoft in those circles where open source is threatening them, as is the case in Massachusetts. The dilemma for Adobe is that if PDF really is perceived as being an open standard and Microsoft supports it as a native format in Office, then Adobe itself is responsible for removing a major competitive differentiator between open source office suites and MSOffice, that the file format itself is guaranteed to be supported in other vendors applications.

Here’s a second post that goes into more detail about how Microsoft implements PDF in Office.

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Legal issues around PDF support: It looks like Adobe wanted us to charge our customers extra for the Save as PDF capability, which we just aren’t willing to do (especially given that other companies already offer it for free). In order to work around this, it looks like we’re going to offer it as a free download instead. At least that way it’s still free for Office users, but unfortunately now there is an added hassle in that anyone that wants the functionality is going to have to download it separately.

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