Adobe mulls legal action against Microsoft

ADOBE CEO Bruce Chizen has told the German financial weekly Euro am Sonntag that he is watching Microsoft for anti-trust activities and may sue Vole if the EU fails to do so.

Chizen "declined to exclude" the possibility of legal action against Microsoft as an alternative to being chummy with it over Adobe's Portable Document Format.

Chizen said that Adobe was keeping a close watch on whether Vole was behaving illegally or holding back. If Microsoft over promotes its XPS document standard, Adobe would either sue Microsoft directly, or cooperate with the EU and continue to supply it with the information it needs to pursue its case.

Currently Plan A is to work with the EU, but if that body does not agree with Adobe, the software maker would take Vole to court by itself.

Chizen said that he was worried about Microsoft because it was a monopoly with almost unlimited financial possibilities. Microsoft has tried to attack Adobe for 20 years, but every time it has tried, it completely missed the mark, he claimed.

Adobe has been unhappy since June that Vole was planned integration of its own XPS into Office 2007 which could stop Windows users from using Adobe's PDF format.

After a thorough dose of sabre rattling from Adobe, Vole chose to drop direct support for both portable formats, instead offering that support as a separate add-on for download from its Web site.

In the interview, Chizen said Adobe had two years to adapt to the reality of Microsoft offering some form of PDF functionality with Vista. Punters will still buy Abobe products because of their unique capabilities, such as live collaboration in the creation of portable documents, and the binding of completed documents to other applications.

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