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Although previous subsets of PDF (specifically PDF/Archive and PDF/Exchange) have been considered by the ISO, the approval of the entire document format as a new standard will impact its development in the future. From this point forward, the ISO, rather than Adobe, is in charge of the PDF specification and any changes that are incorporated into it. According to King, none of the current licensing terms for the PDF standard will change, as it's already licensed for free and readily available to anyone wishing to develop software capable of reading, writing, or processing PDF, but he posits that Adobe's Acrobat suite might see an increased level of competition from other companies as a result of the ISO certification.
Although King doesn't mention this in his blog post, Adobe's push for ISO certification has largely been seen as a response to Microsoft's XPS standard (and self-styled PDF-killer). Not much appears to have happened since Redmond submitted XPS to Ecma last July, but Adobe obviously hopes that PDF's new standing as an ISO standard will serve as a bulwark against any attempt Microsoft might make to push the competing document format out of the market.
Although King doesn't mention this in his blog post, Adobe's push for ISO certification has largely been seen as a response to Microsoft's XPS standard (and self-styled PDF-killer). Not much appears to have happened since Redmond submitted XPS to Ecma last July, but Adobe obviously hopes that PDF's new standing as an ISO standard will serve as a bulwark against any attempt Microsoft might make to push the competing document format out of the market.
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