You can’t deny that when it comes down to tech business, all moves are a competitive one. You need to get in on the market, follow the trends, keep your eye on the prize, predict all consequences, and all this in the shadow of your competitors. And so, when it comes to PDF business, the competition to either emulate or dominate is Adobe. And MS, at least on the XPS side, is attempting just that.
The Adoption of XPS: User requirements
You’ve seen the affect XPS has already had on one format, the ODF. That affect was mainly on the interoperability level. The competition with Adobe, however, will occur mostly on the usership level where end-users, developers, and vendors will play a role. How the PDF de facto status will fare out against the mainstream popularity of MS will be decided by how well the XPS platform (the platform of software that supports creation, use and manipulation of XPS) will meet those different user needs.
Specific document functionality, support for security, compatible hardware and software, client and server options, workflow accommodation—all are what potential end users will look for. For developers, the question becomes: what can be done with the XPS Reference? Does it have the practicality and ease for working with its APIs and SDKs? Vendors, on the other hand, will be looking to see if there is a good market out there, a tech need that will take up the XPS format.
And integrating XPS into the Windows Platform is one of the key factors to making that market happen. Microsoft’s actions are aimed at providing not only a printing document format, but also a document workflow. On the marketing side of things, popularity can make XPS a convenient choice.
The Adobe Factor
Yet for every action there is a reaction. The tech world is no stranger to this concept, especially Adobe these days. XML , in general, is the growing trend for administration workflows right now. And with the Mars document, Adobe’s XML-based representation of PDF, another layer of convenience is added for their own Acrobat and Reader users. Their eye is on the future too.
Yet, aside from the competition with the ISO approval for OOXML, Adobe is also seeing competition with itself. When the PDF 1.7 spec gets its ISO certification, changes will have to be made in software already being used for PDF files. How will pre-ISO PDF files be handled as opposed to post-ISO PDF files? This also means changes for third party vendors– their products, their market and their projects. There’ll be a ripple to accommodate the adjustments, but just how big?
The breadth and reach of the PDF has successfully met the needs of advanced and specific workflows in the past. With the growing digital industry, many hardcopies have already been converted to PDF. The standardized subsets have contributed a huge part to that end— the archiving PDF especially. The push for PDF standardization has been in the back of AIIM and Adobe’s mind since 1995. In other words, years of planning and service aren’t outdone over night. And as time has proven to be Adobe’s defense thus far, it now seems to be a strategic offense.
Does Conversion = Co-Existence?
Of course, two kinds of formats (and users) can co-exist. And as a PDF user, quality conversion is important. For the ODF user, it meant a translator plug in that worked with its competitor. And that’s what it’ll ultimately mean for the PDF user, XPS user and every other user for that matter too—another format to convert. Ironically, it just may become a matter of who can co-exist better.
