Microsoft, Adobe Drama at an Impasse

Microsoft says it is at an impasse over demands from Adobe to remove PDF features from Office and the upcoming Vista operating system.

“We’ve now reached a point where what they are asking is not in the best interest of our company,” Stacy Drake, a Microsoft spokesperson, told internetnews.com today.

Adobe was not immediately available to comment.

The software giant has agreed to remove a “Save as PDF” feature from Office 2007 and make it a separate download.

The company also plans to remove Metro, a competing document file-format, from Vista, making it an OEM option, internetnews.com has learned.

But Microsoft refused to charge for the separate products, saying that selling what it considers an open-source function would put it at a competitive disadvantage.

Drake denied a Wall Street Journal report that the Redmond, Wash., software maker expects to be sued by Adobe in European courts. More likely, Adobe will file a complaint with EU regulators.

Full story: internetnews.com