Vista launch delay threat by Symantec and Adobe objections

Stan Beer
Friday, 22 September 2006 06:48

Your IT - Home IT

Microsoft, which a few months ago launched its own security suite Windows Live OneCare, contends that the inclusion of Patchgard in Vista has been on the table for some time and the Symantec complaint at the eleventh hour is unjustified. The Redmond software company also claims that Vista is designed to give users a choice of security vendor.

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To date, Symantec has not been joined by other security vendors in lodging its complaints to the EC.

While the security issue is a sticky one for the EC, Adobe's complaint about Microsoft's inclusion of its own free competing document creation and reading software appears more clear cut.

Vista will include a built-in competitor to Adobe's Acrobat document creation software, which produces documents in the defacto PDF (Portable Document Format) standard. Adobe sells the Acrobat creation software and makes the Acrobat reader a free download. An estimated 500 million Windows users have the Adobe Acrobat reader installed.

Vista, as it stands, will include Microsoft's own proprietary document standard called XPS (XML Paper Specification). The intention of Microsoft is to leverage its operating system monopoly to replace PDF with XPS as the defacto standard by offering for free what Adobe now charges for.

Microsoft itself knows that the documents creation play is a risky one and has previously unsuccessfully sought advice from the EC over the inclusion of the XPS system in Vista. What Microsoft is doing with XPS is trying it on and seeing what it can get away with. If the EC is consistent with previous rulings, it will force Microsoft to unbundle the XPS feature.

Analyst group Gartner have reportedly predicted that the antitrust issues in the EC will delay the release  of Vista until May 2007.