Matevž Gačnik's Weblog

There's a ton of hot press stories going around today about Adobe not letting Microsoft implement the PDF export functionality in 2007 Office System.

While I can understand that Adobe is running scared by even the thought of everyone producing PDFs without a licensed Adobe Acrobat, I cannot understand the differentiation of source.

It's no secret that Apple uses PDF functionality in the base OS and its applications. You can export everything as a PDF in MacOS X. Hell, even the UI engine uses PDF technology to render those beautiful OS X windows.

See?

And this is not the only case. There are nearly 2000 products out there which can use PDF and this is a GoodThing^tm for a public specification.

WordPerfect Office has already implemented the same functionality Adobe is complaining to Microsoft about.

OpenOffice has already implemented the same functionality Adobe is complaining to Microsoft about.

While I am among the precious few, who condone IP ambivalence, this is not an IP issue, nor is it a licensing issue. Adobe can and will, as it seems, use their right to stop Microsoft in implementing their specification. And it is their specification, with all the rights the owner gets.

It seems that 'Save as...' functionality is indeed too much for Adobe to swallow when a 98% office productivity market share player gets real about it.