Software maker Adobe may sue Microsoft if it is not satisfied with the European Union’s steps to ensure Microsoft’s new operating system does not shut out rivals, Adobe’s chief executive said.

Bruce Chizen told Germany’s Euro am Sonntag newspaper there were two options: to sue Microsoft directly or to work with the authorities and provide them with the necessary information.

“We’re doing the latter. Then we’ll see,” Chizen said in an interview released on Saturday ahead of publication on Sunday.

Microsoft’s new Vista software, due to be released early next year, contains a version of fixed document formats which would compete with Adobe’s PDF format. Microsoft has pledged to make changes to its version.

Chizen added that Adobe, known for its popular Acrobat document reader, was considering offering some of its more sophisticated software for photo and video editing over the Internet, financed by advertising.

“It would be a shame if we could not fit this into our business model,” Chizen said.

via Reuters

Microsoft being so generous lately. What do I mean? Well, guys at Neowin.net got an info that everyone who took part in the Windows Vista beta test (and that’s about 20,000) company have provided a complimentary copy of Windows Vista Business or Ultimate. But there’s a little catch – really not all of 20,000 testers got new & hot software but only those who submitted at least 1 bug report.

Microsoft sent out a mail to those testers just a few minutes ago which specified that it is being offered as a download only. No media will be mailed, and only currently active, invited members of the Windows Vista technical beta program who filed at least one bug are receiving this offer.

Well, can you say now Long Live Micrisoft or still not?

via Neowin

Now that Microsoft has finalized the code of Microsoft Office 2007 at last, corporate customers will be able to get their hands on Office Small Business 2007 soon.

The rest of us will have to wait until early next year to buy a boxed version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and the other members of the Office 2007 family. The consumer editions of Microsoft Office 2007 will hit the stores early next year, in step with the Vista operating system.

Some of the major changes in Office 2007 include the fact that major programs each organize features into tabs rather than drop-down menus and dialog boxes and New XML-based files, which squeeze more data into fewer kilobytes have been added. It is worthy of note that you won’t be able to open a file in the new format immediately when using earlier versions of the programs. This will make sharing work with people without the new version [those who haven’t upgraded] difficult. (more…)

It finally happens! Sun Microsystems Inc. said on Monday that it will make its Java software available for free by giving it to the open-source community. Though company will continue to sell and support standardized versions of the product.

The main cause of that action is to make that ‘sunny’ software more widely available (company still is striving to return to consistent profitability). Several key components of Java are already available for free download and the rest will be released in 2007. ‘Altogether it will put some 6 million lines of Java code into the public domain, making it one of the largest such grants to date’. That what Reuters have told us : )

As you’re all know Java software lets developers write one set of code for programs that work on different types of computers and operating systems. (more…)