Opinion: It's not coincidence that after Massachusetts made it clear that it would support open formats, Microsoft is now going to include PDF in the next version of Office. (PDFzone)
What is Microsoft up to, anyway, with its sudden plan to finally support PDF?
It wasnt announced by Bill Gates loudly to the world at the
Professional Developer Conference a few weeks ago. It also wasnt proclaimed to the Microsoft faithful at its recent
Most Valuable Professional Global Summit.
No, instead, Microsoft quietly squeaked out the news on a Saturday afternoon in
Microsoft Office Program Manager Brian Jones Weblog.
Could it be that its because Microsoft is backing its way into ever so reluctantly supporting an open format after
Massachusetts decided that it would only use office suites that supported open formats like PDF and
OpenDocument?
It certainly looks that way to me.
For all of its talk about being an innovator, Microsoft is really just a follower.
Click here to read more about Microsofts decision to build PDF support into Office 12.
Sometimes, of course, the company is a very, very reluctant follower. It took Microsofts leadership forever to live down the fact that they had initially dismissed the Internet. Now, I see Microsoft slowly and painfully embracing open standards.
Mind you, this move is just a beginning. I recently pointed out that it would be
trivial for Microsoft to add OpenDocument support to Office.
I dont see that happening anytime soon now though.
With PDF support alone, Microsoft can still try for Massachusetts government contracts without having to add OpenDocument.
Well, until
StarOffice, OpenOffice.org and
WordPerfects support for OpenDocument force Microsofts hand anyway.
Read the full story on PDFzone: Is Microsoft Running Scared of OpenDocument?
Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest open-source news, reviews and analysis.
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