continuing the ms-adobe debacle:
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If you want to know why so many computer programs are so bad these days, take a look at the Adobe-Microsoft mess.
These two powerful software developers have gotten into an argument over whether Microsoft can include a new feature in its upcoming Office 2007 productivity suite -- the ability to save your work as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file.
In the process, they're showing how old-fashioned greed and the more modern ailment of lawsuit phobia can turn a promising program sour.
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Adobe has its own monopolistic instincts: Last year it bought what was by far its biggest competitor in the graphics-software business, Macromedia. And it's been happy to exploit the demand for its free Adobe Reader to push unrelated software on users -- the Windows version normally comes with a Yahoo toolbar and Adobe's Photoshop album photo organizer.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has a history of taking standards developed by other companies, then writing software that somehow makes them work best, or only, on Microsoft operating systems. That conduct helped Microsoft lose many of its antitrust battles in the past decade; it's easy to see why the company wants to avoid a return to those days.
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