Windows 8 to Have Built-in PDF Reader

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bison88

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Screw the EU and their lawsuits, filing one could end up backfiring on them from consumer backlash. There comes a point and time in every corporation no matter how big or evil they may end up being, where they have to do something to show progress and be innovative regardless of how it may be seen by the government. Honestly, mounting images and reading PDF's should have been standard for an operating system back in Windows Vista, but instead Microsoft is cowering in the past decade since XP as if they fear just that, another lawsuit. Mark my words, if a lawsuit does happen I sure as hell will support Microsoft and not the government in this case. These are standard features not proprietary formats that any company owns the rights to so by adding support to do some basic features you aren't obliterating the need for the market where others can be successful for adding extra features.

Apple and Linux have got away with murder allowing things that Microsoft would get slammed with monopoly lawsuits with and in return we get a less capable operating system because of it. What did the EU accomplish? Extra browser choices during installation in an age where most Windows users have come to the conclusion that IE is crap? Whoopty-doo EU, thanks for wasting everyones time.
 

lukeeu

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[citation][nom]bison88[/nom]Apple and Linux have got away with murder allowing things that Microsoft would get slammed with monopoly lawsuits with and in return we get a less capable operating system because of it. What did the EU accomplish? Extra browser choices during installation in an age where most Windows users have come to the conclusion that IE is crap? Whoopty-doo EU, thanks for wasting everyones time.[/citation]MacOS, Ubuntu, SuSE, Gentoo, Mandriva and PCLinuxOS are niche systems with marginal maket share so they obviously aren't targeted by anty-monopoly stuff while MS has over 90% market share. Also there are no software parents in EU and people can install MacOS on third party hardware so Apple also doesn't have it easy. Most Linux distros will be happy to add any PDF reader. I've got too choose from 4 or 5 under Gentoo.
 

tonydu

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I remember when Microsoft included broken postscript in order to discourage Adobe fonts. People blamed the postscript technology. Adobe offered to arrange for engineers to fix Microsoft's implementation, but Microsoft refused. Steve Jobs made the same offer to Microsoft, but Microsoft again refused.

Anyone who has been in this industry long enough has seen this over and over. Microsoft's intentionally broken postscript. Microsoft's intentionally broken pdf. Microsoft's intentionally broken Java. Microsoft's intentionally broken non-proprietary networking. Microsoft's intentionally broken fonts. The list goes on and on.

We need to get more public control of companies. This is a symptom of corporate greed without concern for our society. We should restrict the US marketing of products by such companies.
 

blackwidow_rsa

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god damn....place is full of eu and apple hippies. Get a life, anybody that should be using things not made by ms already knows how to get it. lucky i don't live in that european nanny state (no im not from the us.)
 

omnimodis78

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[citation][nom]blackwidow_rsa[/nom]...lucky i don't live in that european nanny state (no im not from the us.)[/citation]
That "european nanny state" to which you are referring has established a policy that truly takes into account the benefits of the consumers - not the corporations...so, ya, it might be a nanny state to you, but it's the Marry Poppins of a nanny state, and I like that!
 

rohitbaran

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[citation][nom]bison88[/nom]Screw the EU and their lawsuits, filing one could end up backfiring on them from consumer backlash. There comes a point and time in every corporation no matter how big or evil they may end up being, where they have to do something to show progress and be innovative regardless of how it may be seen by the government. Honestly, mounting images and reading PDF's should have been standard for an operating system back in Windows Vista, but instead Microsoft is cowering in the past decade since XP as if they fear just that, another lawsuit. Mark my words, if a lawsuit does happen I sure as hell will support Microsoft and not the government in this case. These are standard features not proprietary formats that any company owns the rights to so by adding support to do some basic features you aren't obliterating the need for the market where others can be successful for adding extra features.Apple and Linux have got away with murder allowing things that Microsoft would get slammed with monopoly lawsuits with and in return we get a less capable operating system because of it. What did the EU accomplish? Extra browser choices during installation in an age where most Windows users have come to the conclusion that IE is crap? Whoopty-doo EU, thanks for wasting everyones time.[/citation]
Dude, they can simply release it separately instead of bundling it. Bundling is what makes the software kind of default and prevents users from looking for alternatives. That's what happened with IE.
 
my goodness. So much stupidity in these comments.
- first off: the feature herein described. It is a PDF reader; considering a form of PDF format is now an ISO specification with an irrevocable, transferable, free license, and that it has several, free (cost and code) implementations, while the specifications is still under Adobe's control, I don't really see why there would be an EU investigation.

- second: previous EU investigations were on:
* restrictions and lock down in interoperability on SMB/CIFS: Microsoft almost bought its way out of it, except the Samba project led the investigation to its end, where MS had to open these protocols' specifications and allow... My goodness! Fair competition in the server space!

* abuse of monopolistic position in web browser space: well, suddenly, users moved away from IE in Europe due to a ballot screen. Surprisingly, since that investigation started in 2004, Microsoft got 3 different browser versions out in 6 years while there hadn't been one in 5 years before that, the latest of which follows a specification that Microsoft didn't write alone (IE6 tried to write 'DHTML', 'VML' by its lonesome, and to use Visual Basic as a webpage scripting language. Interestingly, last week a US author wrote an article recommending that Microsoft made IE optional, and proposed users to download a choice of web browser. And no, since IE is a 'system component', EU customers don't get an IE-less copy (the WMP-less copies are invisible) - they still use IE to download Firefox or Chrome. Or they stick to IE9, which is surprisingly a decent browser.

- third: Java's license does say that the only way for a piece of code interpreter to call itself 'java' or java compatible', is to pass the Sun/Oracle Java specification test suite; if it does, use of copyrighted name is granted and patents are freely licensed. Microsoft's 'java' VM never passed that suite, and it still called itself java. Breach of license, breach of copyright, and obvious attempt at subverting a specification with help from a monopolistic position.

- last: a monopoly abuse is one where a company gets so big it can influence the market; a liberal system ensures that a monopoly must remain competitive and not simply lock down the market with barriers to entry. Please note that, of all companies and bodies who asked for a regulation on MS because of IE, one was Norwegian (Opera), two were american (Google, Apple), and one was international but based in the US (Mozilla). Funny how the EU defends the free market to the benefit of US companies, while the US don't...
 

lukeeu

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[citation][nom]alextheblue[/nom] I don't see them forcing Fiat to include a choice of aftermarket stereos, instead of the Fiat units. Oh what's that, you could replace your stereo system yourself? Oh, how similar to a browser, only browsers are free.[/citation]When my uncle bought a Fiat dealer installed after market stereo with a rear view camera. They also installed LPG system and installing one yourself would void warranty on the engine. So I also don't see them forcing Fiat to do anything...
 

rohitbaran

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@^ Well, maybe not. MS probably is going to behave itself after they learned it the hard way by losing their web browser market share. They will probably try to keep it light and quick like IE9.
 

cletus_slackjawd

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This is good news, I've gotten sick of the relentless Adobe Acrobat Reader updates and removing the icon that it puts on my desktop each time. I'm starting to wonder with all this windows 8 news if this new O/S is going to be out this year.
 

zachary k

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[citation][nom]rohitbaran[/nom]Dude, they can simply release it separately instead of bundling it. Bundling is what makes the software kind of default and prevents users from looking for alternatives. That's what happened with IE.[/citation]
people have a right to be as lazy as they want, and companies have a right to take advantage of that. the EU should keep their grubby hands out of things like this. now if Microsoft prevented windows from installing alternative browsers, there would be a problem. but they can install whatever they want out of the box, it's their product!
 

compton

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Was I the only person on the planet to enjoy the Vista Beta?
I never had one single problem with it.

From my perspective Vista was fine, and everyone else screwed up. Sloppy drivers and Intel's goofy triple tiered Vista "Ready" program are both deserving of blame.
 

trandoanhung1991

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Well, we should, like many stated, force apple to "include a choice of browsers and remove safari as the default browser". Or, how about forcing apple to "not include itunes as the default media player and include a choice of media players"?

Apple is not big enough? Look at the number of people who religiously uses Apple stuff. I think they can influence the market they play in. It's called monopolistic competition.
 
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