[gui-talk] Fwd: Article: Microsoft Strips Key Features from Office 2007, Vista

[Doug Lee]

Anyone know why Vista is dropping PC to PC Sync?

On Tue, Jun 06, 2006 at 08:56:44AM +1000, Steve Pattison wrote:

>From: Geoff Chapman gch at internode.net.au
>To: vision impaired persons list vip-l at softspeak.com.au
>
>Microsoft Strips Key Features from Office 2007, Vista
>
>    by Paul Thurrott,
>thurrott at windowsitpro.com
>
>With Adobe Systems threatening a lawsuit over a new feature in
>Microsoft Office 2007 that would have allowed users to save any
>document in Adobe's PDF format, Microsoft now says it will simply drop
>the feature. But Office 2007 isn't the only major Microsoft product to
>shed its features in recent weeks. The company recently revealed it
>would also drop an eagerly anticipated feature from Windows Vista and
>downplay another previously hyped feature.
>
>Regarding Office 2007, Adobe and Microsoft had been talking
>contentiously over the past several weeks about the feature, a PDF
>conversion tool, for which Adobe wanted Microsoft to pay a licensing
>fee. Microsoft isn't interested in paying for the feature, however, and
>is now considering offering the PDF conversion tool to Office 2007
>users as a free download instead.
>
>Adobe is still expected to take legal action against Microsoft in the
>near future. "Microsoft has a monopoly and we are always concerned
>about the possibility that they might abuse that monopoly," an Adobe
>spokesperson said recently, alluding to the PDF discussions. The
>company says it hasn't yet decided whether to sue, but European Union
>(EU) antitrust officials have already weighed in, publicly stating that
>the spat is an intellectual-property issue, not a competitive one.
>
>What's interesting about this whole debate is that Adobe normally
>licenses Adobe Acrobat PDF for free, and other Office suites, including
>those from Corel WordPerfect and OpenOffice.org, offer PDF integration
>already. Additionally, several free PDF conversion tools already are
>available and work natively with Microsoft Office products. So why
>would Adobe want to prevent Microsoft from making this functionality
>available from within Office?
>
>Many are speculating that what Adobe is really upset about is
>Microsoft's new XML Paper Specification (XPS) format, which competes
>with Adobe Acrobat. In addition to providing PDF-like services to
>Vista, however, XPS also forms the basis of the Vista printing
>subsystems. According to reports, Adobe wanted Microsoft to charge
>customers for both PDF and XPS export from Microsoft Office
>applications.
>
>Not coincidentally perhaps, XPS is on the chopping block now in Vista.
>Although this technology will still be used under the covers as the
>basis for Vista's printing subsystems, (and Microsoft does plan to
>offer XPS functionality via a Web download to Vista users), XPS export
>and viewing functionality won't be included by default in any Vista
>versions. PC makers that bundle Vista on their machines will have the
>option of installing that functionality for users. It's unlikely that
>many PC makers will opt to do so, a fact that Microsoft freely admits.
>
>Meanwhile, Vista is also losing a major feature, PC-to-PC sync, which
>Microsoft Co-President Jim Allchin described to me back in January as
>one of his favorite Vista features. "You really can leave all your
>documents on a server and use cached copies on the client," he said.
>"It's just synchronizing the files when you make changes, as needed."
>
>It's unclear whether PC-to-PC sync will appear later, perhaps as a Web
>download update to Vista, or in a future Windows release. Typically,
>when Microsoft drops features from the Windows version currently in
>development, those features get lumped into the next release. Microsoft
>has indicated that it will be releasing more frequent Windows updates
>going forward, though it hasn't yet specified how it will deliver those
>updates.

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
Skype:  steve1963
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com 

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-- 
Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org        
SSB + BART Group         doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com   http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
"If you refuse to be made straight when you are green,
you will not be made straight when you are dry." {African}