Office,Vista因Adobe的诉讼而改变
添加时间: 2007-4-13 4:32:10 作者: 计算机等级考试认证参考 阅读次数:21 来源: http://www.d9soft.com
update Microsoft is making changes to the next versions of both Office and Windows as part of an effort to head off a legal challenge from Adobe Systems.
Microsoft said earlier Friday that it expects an antitrust suit from Adobe after months of negotiations in which the companies failed to reach an accord.
The software maker is unilaterally making changes to both Office 2007 and Windows Vista in an effort to assuage some of Adobe's concerns. More important, the move is an attempt to lower the chances that an injunction could stop Microsoft from shipping those products.
"We don't want anything to stand in the way of customers getting their hands on the product," Microsoft Vice President Chris Capossela told CNET News.com in a telephone interview on Friday. "We certainly are trying to be a good partner here."
Microsoft has already had to delay the release date for Windows Vista several times because of technological hurdles. The current plan is to finish development of Office in October, and Vista by November, in order to have a mainstream launch of the products in January.
The company is making two main changes. With Vista, it plans to give computer makers the option of dropping some support for XPS, Microsoft's fixed-format document type that some have characterized as a PDF-killer. Under the changes, Microsoft will still use XPS under the hood to help the operating system print files. But computer makers won't have to include the software that allows users to view XPS files or to save documents as XPS files.
That said, Microsoft doesn't expect many computer makers will choose that option.
"We think it will be rare, because there is value and customers want it," group program manager Andy Simonds told CNET News.com. History may be on Microsoft's side here. The company was ordered by the European Union to offer a version of Windows without a built-in media player. However, manufacturers have shown little or no interest in selling PCs based on the stripped-down operating system.
On the Office side, Microsoft plans to take out of Office 2007 a feature that allows documents to be saved in either XPS or PDF formats. However, consumers will be able to go to Microsoft's Web site and download a patch that will add those capabilities back in.
If customers do that, it will essentially make Office 2007 work the same way as it has in current test versions, including the Beta 2 release that Microsoft made publicly available last week.
Customers will have to go through extra work, though, as they need to both download code and install it before adding back the options.
"It's clearly not as customer-friendly as we would like it to be," Capossela said. Microsoft announced plans for the PDF-saving option in October.
Even if customers don't download the add-on for Office, those running Vista may still be able to save their documents in the XPS format, provided their computer maker has not stripped out Vista's own XPS abilities. In Vista, the print driver can save all files in the XPS format.
Forrester analyst Kyle McNabb said that Microsoft's move to make PDF saving an add-on to Office 2007 won't be a major blow to the new software. "Having to download it and add it will not kill Office 2007," McNabb said. Consumers "will be disappointed, yes, but it won't prevent Office 2007 from moving forward."
Simonds, whose unit develops XPS, said that customers want the fixed document type and doesn't see the additional hurdles hurting XPS' ability to become a universal file format. "We think that value will sort of transcend any of this," he said.
But it will be an added hurdle, Capossela acknowledged. "Clearly, it introduces a barrier, in that customers have to go through another step to make this capability possible," he said.
Adobe developed PDF but has made much of its core technology an open standard. It offers its own PDF reader software for free, while charging for the Acrobat software that creates PDF files. Microsoft maintains that its plan to incorporate a PDF-saving option was on solid legal ground, noting that rivals such as Corel and Sun Microsystems already include such options in their office software products.
McNabb said that regardless of the latest moves, PDF is still the dominant player in the market.
"There is more demand for PDF than XPS," McNabb said. "Even if Microsoft makes XPS free and native (to Office) and users have to download PDF, it will only have a marginal impact on XPS adoption. The market wants PDF."
相关中文报道：
遭遇Adobe诉讼 微软 拟调整Office和Vista功能
由于与Adobe系统公司的法律纠纷，微软正在调整下一版本的Office和Windows。
微软周五表示，与Adobe在经历数月的谈判后未能达成和解预计将形成反垄断诉讼，因此，微软单方面调整Office 2007和Windows Vista以便缓解Adobe的一些担忧，更重要的是，降低法官阻止微软这些产品上市的可能性。
微软副总裁克里斯-卡波塞拉表示：“我们不希望在客户得到这些产品的过程中遇到任何阻碍，在这方面，我们显然正努力成为好的合作伙伴。”
微软已经多次推迟了Vista的上市日期。目前的计划是十月完成Office 2007，11月完成Vista，以便明年一月在主流市场上市。
微软进行了两大调整。一方面，计算机制造商将可以选择放弃Vista中一些对XPS的支持，这是微软的固定格式文件类型，一些人称其为“PDF杀手”。微软将继续使用XPS以便帮助操作系统打印文件，但是计算机制造商不需要使用户能通过该软件查看XPS文档，也不需要能将文件保存为XPS格式。
微软项目经理安迪-西蒙兹表示：“我们认为这样选择的计算机制造商会很少，因为这是有价值的，客户需要它们。”欧盟曾命令微软提供不包括媒体播放器的Windows版本，但是制造商没兴趣出售这类产品。
另一方面，微软将从Office 2007中取消一项将文档保存为XPS或PDF的功能，但是客户可以从微软网站下载重新添加这些功能。卡波塞拉表示：“这显然不是我们希望看到的对客户友好的选择。”
即使没有Office这种附件，只要计算机制造商在Vista中没有剥离功能，用户仍然可以将文件保存为XPS功能，在Vista中，打印机程序能将一切文档保存为XPS格式。Forrester分析师凯尔-麦克纳表示，这对Office 2007不会是一个重大打击，尽管客户会有些失望，但是不能阻止Office 2007的前进。西蒙兹表示，客户希望得到XPS格式，他不认为新的障碍会阻止XPS成为通用标准。
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