Adobe’s Response on PDF Battle Does Little to Answer Industry Concerns
Washington, DC – After waiting more than a week to respond, Adobe’s statement on its dispute with Microsoft only reaffirms that it is turning the PDF format from an open standard into a double standard.
“Adobe’s statement does little to quell industry fears over its new position on PDF. It sounds mostly like a lot of double talk to hide Adobe’s weakened commitment to keeping PDF a truly open standard,” said Morgan Reed, executive director for the Association for Competitive Technology.
“With independent software developers, consumers and governments demanding that Microsoft implement PDF and other open standards, it is troubling that Adobe is now telling them that they can’t,” Reed continued. “The thing about open standards is that they must be open to everyone to implement, including your competitors.”
By Adobe’s logic, Microsoft should never be allowed to implement ANY open standards because they might innovate on top of them. Adobe’s statement claims that “the real issue is the protection of open standards,” but its concerns seem focused on protecting its control of and profits from the PDF standard.
“Adobe is saying that it is fine for companies to implement PDF and innovate upon the standard as long as they aren’t successful at it. While Adobe is concerned about Microsoft today, it could be Google tomorrow, or some successful start-up a year from now,” said Reed.
Adobe’s decision is particularly strange given the company’s initial embrace of Microsoft’s decision to implement PDF within Microsoft Office. As Adobe Vice President Eugene Lee said, “Adobe is pleased that Microsoft finally ‘gets it’, and we welcome them to the PDF party.”