Adobe's Acrobat Act Adds Flash
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News Analysis. The real format war isn't between OOXML and ODF, it's OOXML vs. PDF. Today, Adobe launched a devastating attack against Microsoft. |
As long had been anticipated, Adobe has added Flash to PDF creation—and much more. The move extends PDF beyond its paper origins firmly into the digital realm. Microsoft lags far behind. Today Adobe announced Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader 9, with support for PDF with Flash.
For years, I've contended that Microsoft's real file format competitor was PDF and not Open Document Format. PDF is a productivity format, too, but one often ignored when analysts evaluate Microsoft file format competitors. There's misguided perception that businesses largely need just one file format. For productivity documents, PDF also is widely used, just often ignored in analysis of the competitive desktop. In fact, I assume that PDF penetration, among businesses and consumers, is at least as great as Microsoft binary file formats and a whole lot more than Office Open XML.
There are reasons why Microsoft has so recently launched so many healthcare initiatives, for example. It's not for love of doctors. Healthcare is an enormous Adobe stronghold, bolstered in part by government regulations. For example, pharmaceuticals submit drug trial information to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration digitally, in PDF format. Elsewhere, PDF/A, the archival version of the format, is endorsed by U.S. National Archives.
Acrobat 9 takes PDF someplace Microsoft simply isn't ready to compete. Flash also is everywhere and now it's ready to spice up digital documents, to truly transcend any paper origins. Microsoft has XPS (XML Paper Specification) and Silverlight, but the two lack the market penetration or creation tools of Acrobat, AIR, Flash and Flex.
Adobe's Acrobat 9 approach highlights the flaws in Microsoft's desktop, digital content creation strategy. Adobe has done much better building tools supporting its principal file format. Microsoft has too many tools producing content for too many silos, such as animation and Web site creation. Adobe tools embrace similar developer and content creation domains, but with pull back to its principal file format.
Adobe and Microsoft both share fault. Adobe took too long incorporating Flash into PDF. Competitively and customer constructively, Adobe should have reached this pinnacle one product version ago. Microsoft should have known that Adobe would incorporate Flash into Acrobat, supported by PDF. Adobe has set up Flash to invade the desktop even more strongly, right smack where the injury will competitively be greatest for Microsoft. Meanwhile, Silverlight chases Flash on the Web.
Microsoft's near obsession with attaining ISO standardization for OOML may be part of the problem. The priority should have been extending the utility of Microsoft desktop formats in areas where Adobe was sure to go and which made more sense for customers—incorporation of animation and collaboration elements into Office file formats. There, Microsoft relied too much on PowerPoint and SharePoint, methinks. Adobe has got a more elegant solution that doesn't require the purchase of new server software, although it's an option.
Acrobat 9 also extends earlier collaboration features and, more importantly, support for disparate file types. Since version 7, Acrobat has allowed end users to put together documents from almost any source and save them as a single, PDF file. So a PDF file could include a CAD drawing, Excel spreadsheet, Web page and Word document that anyone could collaborate on using Adobe Reader. Acrobat 9 motif "PDF Portfolios" extends the multi-document, multi-format support concept.
Microsoft executives harp on about the company's software-plus-services strategy, but too often the approach is server software plus services. Many new desktop features require purchase of additional server software. While Adobe also pushes server software, Acrobat provides collaboration and other non-traditional document creation features as part of Acrobat. Today, Adobe also launched Acrobat.com in beta, providing facility for more easily sharing and collaborating on PDF files. I'll more fully comment on the new service in a subsequent post.
Today's Adobe announcements further advance the company's near-certain enterprise collision with Microsoft. I give this round to Adobe, which has provided facility for creating more modern, digital documents. Surely, the transition was difficult for Adobe, which built its Acrobat and PDF businesses around mimicking paper documents. Surely there were cultural and management obstacles to change.
Competitively, Microsoft simply has nothing comparable to offer, unless SharePoint and supporting server software are considered. But SharePoint and supporting Microsoft software make for a hefty infrastructure upgrades. And Adobe's tools are better honed for truly digital document creation.
Microsoft should never have let Adobe move so swiftly and so far into Office territory. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates long ago identified the importance of controlling file formats. Perhaps Adobe is learning too well from Microsoft and accordingly applying the lessons.
Related Posts:
- Will Silverlight Outshine Flash?, Microsoft Watch, March 5, 2008
- Adobe Oxygenates AIR, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 25, 2008
- Adobe Points AIR Gun at Microsoft, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 25, 2008
- Adobe's Acrobat Act, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 18, 2007
- Adobe: 25 Years and Counting, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 12, 2007
- Adobe-Microsoft Collision Course, Microsoft Watch, Oct. 4, 2007
- Apollo Is No Flash in the Pan, Microsoft Watch, March 19, 2007
Comments (19)
What's the compelling document use-cases that involve embedded Flash? I can't think of any that aren't niche. (But please educate me.) Also, my understanding is that XPS is Microsoft's PDF competitor.
Posted by Bruce | June 2, 2008 2:28 PM
"Today, Adobe launched a devastating attack against Microsoft."
Um, at best you mean "potentially devastating", don't you Joe? FWIW, hyperbole like that really undercuts your credibility, at least imo.
Posted by Paul | June 2, 2008 2:40 PM
PDF with Flash allows documents and forms to act as their own user interfaces for integrated functionality. The document is the application, accompnaying the document where ever it is sent and used. This allows for databases of interconnected documents each knowing and actuating relationships with other documents without having to rely on outside applications for display or handling.
Documents with their own application capabilities become stand-alone operation centers; each able to perform the kind of use-case, governance and maintenance functions required for that document throughout the document life-cycle.
What Adobe is teaching is a fundamental step toward automating document use in a semantic fashion accessible across the web.
Comments like the above from Bruce and Paul demonstrate just how far behind traditional architectural concepts are when confronting this kind of facility.
Congratulations to Adobe. They now have the opportunity to offer document management on a global scale with nothing more than documents as the platform.
Posted by portuno | June 2, 2008 3:35 PM
If its an application, lets call it an application, and not a document. I'm sure my IT security guys will care about the distinction once these guys start flying around. Lets see, small downloadable apps, presumably with some kind of sandbox security model - compare to ActiveX controls or Java applets. (Or compare to the e-mail titled "You have to read this!" with a coolstuf.exe attachment...)
Posted by Bruce | June 2, 2008 3:55 PM
The more the PDF file format becomes an application file format, the more my desire to move away from them and block them from our email servers manifests itself.
PDFs are great for sending/providing print formatted documents and forms. Every stupid feature they add above and beyond that use case just bloats the client (yes, I am aware of lightweight alternatives like Fox-It) and opens my systems up to more security exploit vectors.
But I can't abandon it. It's too entrenched. I had hopes for XPS but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Irony of ironies that I look to MS for salvation, but at least MS now understands the necessity to separate code from data, both in XPS and thier OOXML based Office formats.
PS: Acrobat 8 (maybe earlier) has some kind of multi document package feature (PDFs only I guess). It confused the hell out of me the first time I got one becaue it said Page 1 of 1, when there should have been 60. Then I noticed the extra sidebar full of thumbnails of the other documents. So much for an easy to use format.
PPS: Anyone remember the Office Binder format?
Posted by DCMonkey | June 2, 2008 5:14 PM
@Bruce,
Know anyone who exchanges XPS files?
Al neither.
Posted by Al | June 2, 2008 5:56 PM
If I were Microsoft I'd be celebrating Adobe's decision to add Flash to PDFs.
Few things on the web are more annoying than the use of Flash where it isn't needed. I expect that Flash programmers will show the same lack of restraint with PDFs.
Where the manual for your lawnmower now has a prefectly good static ad for motor oil, it'll soon have a full-motion video & sound ad. Like with many web sites, ads will expand over the main page content, forcing you to pay attention.
File sizes will vastly increase. So will security issues.
As a good way to disseminate documents is turned into a multimedia advertising platform, the signal to noise ration will take a big hit, and users will start to avoid it.
Some day people may blame Microsoft for killing the PDF standard. But it'll be Adobe that beat it to death.
Posted by Roger Strong | June 2, 2008 6:14 PM
PDF & Flash - two radically different formats that kill web experiences.
XPS + Silverlight - 2 XML based formats. Which do I prefer?
Posted by Mike | June 2, 2008 6:33 PM
LOL The Illuminati are aflame.
Posted by portuno | June 2, 2008 6:42 PM
@Al, I'll take your word for it that XPS hasn't seen industry adoption - its not something I've looked into, I just know that XPS is positioned in the same space that PDF occupies.
I think Joe just used OOXML in this article instead of XPS because it gave his lede an extra dose of controversy, given recent OOXML news.
Posted by Bruce | June 2, 2008 7:21 PM
Has somebody figured out how to run flash on a piece of paper :) :)
Bernie
Posted by Bernie | June 2, 2008 7:59 PM
Has somebody figured out how to run flash on a piece of paper :) :)
Bernie
Posted by Bernie | June 2, 2008 8:00 PM
Has somebody figured out how to run flash on a piece of paper? :) :)
Posted by Bernie | June 2, 2008 8:02 PM
"Comments like the above from Bruce and Paul demonstrate just how far behind traditional architectural concepts are when confronting this kind of facility."
Portuno, go back to making a fool of yourself bashing MSFT under a dozen aliases, half female, on the Yahoo board, okay?
Posted by Paul | June 2, 2008 8:54 PM
What's the matter, Paul? Don't like it when somebody calls BS? It's quite obvious Microsoft has some open wounds and Adobe and IBM are pouring salt into it with a funnel.
There's no getting away from any of this, Paul. And I certainly won't let you get away from it. Not with an attitude like yours.
Microsoft has been lying to you and everyone like you. You believed what they told you. You bought into their structure and you thought nothing could ever poke a hole in the castle wall. Now the walls are down.
What you people need is a plan. The problem is: you don't have a plan.
You do have a plan? Tell us all what it is.
Sharepoint? Compared with free? Great plan you got there. I think they decapitated kings for that kind of plan.
Posted by portuno | June 2, 2008 11:30 PM
if foxit (free version) adds support, then i'll see these changes. otherwise, i'll never know. cause acrobat dont play on my systems, EVER again. I'd just as soon install realplayer.
Posted by Sam | June 3, 2008 1:38 AM
I agree with most of the commentors
Who the hell needs flash in a document - so devestating for MS, time to pack up and go.
I think Adobe has run out of things to add to Acrobat.
Being in the IT dept, the last thing I want is people runing custom apps out of it - thanks Bruce
Posted by BlahBlah | June 3, 2008 4:05 PM
That's all right blahblah. You won't be in the IT department for long. "IT department" is a dying concept. You're an endangered species. They'll stuff and mount you in the museum. About the same way you get stuffed and mounted at the bath house.
Posted by portuno | June 4, 2008 11:31 AM
There are plenty of good uses for flash in PDF that could be powerful. Using the Business Objects Infommersion tools to do embedded "what-if" analysis in a document. Graphs and charts in the document become fully interactive objects. A bank could send out home equity loan materials that include an embedded loan calculator.
Posted by Michael Caton | June 5, 2008 12:08 PM