Will XPS (XML Paper Specification), codenamed Metro, dislodge Adobe’s PDF as the de facto document standard? That’s the question being asked now that the format is set for inclusion in both Windows Vista and Office 12. When Metro was unveiled nearly a year ago, many industry experts laughed at the presumption.

Now Microsoft and its supporters are outling the advantages of XPS compared to PDF. ITJungle quotes Charles LeCompte, president of Lyra Research: “The release of the XPS standard may very well become one of the major milestones of PC-based imaging history. All documents will be able to print to XPS without an intermediary file converter, such as Acrobat PDF. XPS aims to integrate that functionality in all Windows applications, not just high-end, professional applications, as with PDF.”

As a caveat, LeCompte also said that XPS’ place success is not a certainty, and needs strong support from Microsoft to make it happen. “Historically, Microsoft’s forays into new territories have been slow from the gate. Take, for example, the early clunky versions of Windows and Internet Explorer. Adobe Acrobat’s strong head start in the industry and its near ubiquity coupled with very sophisticated, evolved tools for workflow management and cross-platform portability demand that XPS comes out strong to be considered more than a PDF-light variation.”

A totally happy New Year from Syntagma Media to all our uber-readers.

I hope you’ll stick with us in 2006 for Microsoft’s “year of delivery”.

At last Office 12 has arrived on reality radar screens. But only in a Technical Beta version.

Microsoft, true to form, sizzles with fulsome self-praise. This productivity suite is aimed at nothing less than “redefining the Office experience”.

But, does it? Well, if they get round to sending a copy to yours truly, I’ll be able to tell you. The answer, though, is, pound to a penny, yes and no.

The Channel Register tells us: “Recent versions of Office – Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003 – have lacked the features required to persuade 30 per cent of the Office user base to move off of the eight-year-old Office 97. Customers have eschewed tighter integration and splashy features, believing Office 97 to be ‘good enough’. Just 15 per cent of PCs are running Office 2003.”

Office 12 will share Windows Vista’s WinFX XML mark-up interface. File formats are also in XML. The suite will feature improved business intelligence (BI). “Excel spreadsheets will be able to access corporate data held in SQL Server while a server-based set of Excel Services will allow customers to secure and share data.”

A big improvement will be the use of “Ribbon” icons replacing dropdown menus. The idea is to make many “hidden” features more accessible.

Office will also come in various Editions “with a ‘premium’ edition of Office due. It is not yet clear what features [it] will carry or what the price will be. The current ‘high-end’ edition of Office is Office Professional Edition, priced $380 per copy.

Microsoft is to comply with part of the European Union’s requirement that the company submit its XML formats to a standards body and remove non-XML formatted components from WordML. In May 2004 the EU also told Microsoft to supply filters supporting the OASIS OpenDocument format.

The submission to the standards office begins with an application to Ecma International, the Geneva-based computer manufacturer standards group, says the New York Times. Ecma may fast-track the submission, perhaps as soon as its December 8 meeting, a Microsoft International spokesman said.

Joe Wilcox of Microsoft Monitor makes the point that, “In theory, the standards committee would take responsibility for Microsoft’s XML-based formats and any advances made to them. Microsoft’s major concern, and it’s reasonable : that future changes to the formats don’t compromise backward compatibility. From a customer perspective, backward compatibility would be important for their mountains of content in older Office formats.”

Microsoft said the application was being supported by several partners and customers, including Apple Computer, Intel, Toshiba, Barclays Bank and the British Library. If approved by the standardization office, the standard would allow documents created under previous Microsoft Office versions (at least as early as Office 2000) to work equally well with the Open XML standard, the NYT said.