Today Adobe announced Acrobat 7.0, and Weblogs, Inc's own The Design Weblog is right on top of it with a detailed report on the feature-rich, more mature business critical application.

Acrobat 7 is not the complete overhaul that was Acrobat 6, but it builds upon the steady three-legged foundation poured by Acrobat 6. With critical press and prepress features for creative pros, streamlined business features, and by opening the door to the enterprise's total adoption of electronic documents with the new power given to the ubiquitous and free Adobe Reader, Acrobat 7 kicks over the last stubborn hurdles to total epaper conversion for every document-based workflow. Acrobat is all grown up.

Last week Macromedia settled with Forgent over JPEG patent infringement issue. Today Forgent creates "enhanced intellectual property" site to provide "information on Forgent's intellectual property program and the litigation." Tomorrow, Forgent may go after TiVo and MP3 players.

On 23 April 2004 The Design Weblog first reported on Austin, Texas-based Forgent Networks, Inc.'s claim of infringement on its  U.S. Patent #4698672, which covers the compression algorithm in JPEG images, and the lawsuit filed by Forgent against software makers whose products read or wrote JPEG files.

Among those named in the suit were: Adobe Systems Inc., Agfa Corp., Axis Communications Inc., Canon USA, Concord Camera Corp., Creative Labs Inc., Dell Inc., Eastman Kodak Co., Fuji Photo Film Co. U.S.A., Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Gateway Inc., HP, IBM, JASC Software, JVC Americas Corp., Kyocera Wireless Corp., Macromedia Inc., Matsushita Electric Corp. of America, Oce' North America Inc., Onkyo Corp., PalmOne Inc., Panasonic Communications Corp. of America, Panasonic Mobile Communications Development Corp. of USA, Ricoh Corp., Riverdeep Inc., Savin Corp., Thomson S.A., Toshiba Corp. and Xerox Corp.

In the intervening time, several companies have settled with Forgent and been removed from that list. Most notable are Adobe Systems, Inc., who settled for an undisclosed amount in early July, and now Macromedia, Inc. Last week San Francisco-based Macromedia, maker of web mainstay, JPEG-making products, Freehand, Flash, and Fireworks, settled out of court with Forgent for an unspecified amount.

Elevated by news of strong revenue growth, product development and financial management, Microsoft Corp. was rated as having the best reputation among the largest U.S. companies for the second quarter of 2004, by the Delahaye Index, a quarterly assessment of how news media coverage affects corporate reputation.

Sep 7, 2004 (financialwire.net via COMTEX) — (FinancialWire) "I guess Steve's kids just listen to Bach and Mozart," McGraw-Hill's (NYSE: MHP) Businessweek quotes Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Bill Gates when asked why his company is making handheld gadgets that play video as well as music, while Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) has so far spurned the idea to stick with its music iPods.

"We don't think people have a burning desire to watch video on tiny little screens," Apple's Steve Jobs, a longtime Gates nemesis, was quoted as saying earlier. Gates retorted that his kids "want to watch Finding Nemo," which of course was made by Jobs' [Pixar] Animation Studios (NASDAQ: PIXR).

"I don't know who made that, but it's a really neat movie," Gates was said to have quipped.

The asides were made in conjunction with Microsoft's launch of the company's new portable video players, made for it by Samsung and others. The device will also allow its users to purchase and manage music with its Windows Media Player.

From the About.com Graphics Software discussion forum: "There IS no Apple vs PC or Adobe vs Corel rivalry. It's all computers and software that do the job and do it well… Forget computers for a moment. Did artists insult one another because one used Koohinoor pens and another settled for Rapidographs? ...Apple vs PC arguments exist only because some people feel superior they know one software, and because they have more time on their hands to rant and rave."

Marc Orchant, the author of our sister site, The Tablet PCs Weblog, updates the IE/server security vulnerability story with welcome news:

OK. For the moment, it's safe to use Internet Explorer. ZDNet is reporting that the Russian server that was invading infected PCs has been shut down. Still, experts warn, it's only a matter of time before we see something like this again.

Web surfers are no longer playing Russian roulette each time they visit a Web site, security researchers say, now that a far-reaching Internet attack has been disarmed.

The attack, which had turned some Web sites into points of digital infection, was nipped in the bud Friday, when Internet engineers managed to shut down a Russian server that had been the source of malicious code. Compromised Web sites are still attempting to infect Web surfers' PCs by referring them to the server in Russia, but that computer can no longer be reached.

Still, Web surfers should take precautions, as the Internet underground is increasingly using this type of attack as a way to get by network defenses and infect officer workers' and home users' computers.

ALERT! Internet security groups are warning of a newly discovered vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that allows outside parties to take control of users' machines. The code that exploits the vulnerability and opens a backdoor is prevalent not only on small, out-of-the-way sites, but also on popular trusted, professional and corporate websites such as those belonging to leading banks, auction services, and price comparison firms.

And, its spreading.

The maliscious code is so rampant on trusted websites that the prevailing advice from Internet security consultancies like the Internet Storm Center and US Computer Emergency Reponse Center is to use another browser, to discontinue use of Internet Explorer until Microsoft patches the vulnerability.

From BBC News World Edition, Friday, 25 June, 2004:

The net watchdog, the US Computer Emergency Reponse Center, and the net security monitor, the Internet Storm Center, have both issued warnings about the combined threat of compromised websites and browser loophole.

Cert said: "Users should be aware that any website, even those that may be trusted by the user, may be affected by this activity and thus contain potentially malicious code."

In its round-up of the threat the Internet Storm Center bluntly stated that users should if possible "use a browser other then MS Internet Explorer until the current vulnerabilities in MSIE are patched."

What websites are vulnerable to infection, and thus becoming points of attack upon IE users?

...Any Windows 2000 Server that does not have the MS04-011 security update installed and is running Internet Information Server.

The virulent Sasser worm exploited loopholes closed by this update so many servers are likely to be patched against the problem.

How does the infection occur?

Infected servers are adding a malicious chunk of Javascript to all the web, gif and jpg files served up to anyone browsing the sites they host.

When loading on a browsing PC, this chunk of code might trigger a Windows error message.

Once downloaded the code redirects a browser to a Russian website which tries to install a program that opens a backdoor into the PC.

Some net service firms have started blocking access to this Russian site.

Pariah Burke writes the Design Weblog and Magazine Design Weblog for Weblogs, Inc., and is a contributing writer to the Nanopublishing Weblog.

Friday, 4 June 2004:  The Design Weblog exclusive interview with Mr. QuarkXPress Mr. InDesign himself, David Blatner.

In addition to writing on everything from OS X to design, David Blatner is the author of more than a dozen books running the gamut from The Joy of PI, Judaism For Dummies, The Flying Book:  Everything You've Ever Wondered About Flying On Airplanes, and Silicon Mirage:  The Art and Science of Virtual Reality. He is best known, however, for his incredibly successful series of books related to graphic design and industry standard design tools, including as author or co-author of:  Real World:  Photoshop, Real World:  QuarkXPress, Real World:  InDesign, Real World:  Scanning and Halftoning, Desktop Publisher's Survival Kit, and InDesign For QuarkXPress Users.

Dr. John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe, was awarded Thursday the British Computer Society's Ada Lovelace Medal by BCS president Professor Wendy Hall CBE. The prize is awarded to individuals who have made a significant contribution to the advancement, or general understanding, of Information Systems.

In his acceptance speech Warnock briefly discussed Adobe's creation of printer-independent soft-fonts, including the first public explanation of how Adobe did it. The "font problem," was how to create soft-fonts for previously lead-only typefaces. Adobe's solution was that fonts could not be recreated from scans with fidelity, so they were hand-tuned for presentability. "It was so bloody simple," said Warnock, that Adobe was unable to patent the solution.

Asked why Microsoft had never mounted a successful challenge to PDF, Warnock answered:  "For the longest time they just didn't get it. Didn't get the subtlety of publishing and the importance of how things look and not just the content of the ascii text."

In 1984 Warnock had the initial concept for PDF, and realized it would be a valuable Web technology in 1991. According to Adobe, more than 500 million copies of Acrobat/Adobe Reader have been distributed worldwide, more than 1,800 vendors offer PDF-based solutions, and governments and federal agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and elsewhere have standardized on PDF for electronic document exchange and archival.

For today's software startups, Warnock offered this advice:  "There was no great planning in what [Adobe] did, the company evolved. You have to follow the river—it's the same now. There is no magic formula, but don't hire MBAs."

Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen to Knowldege@Wharton:

We have a whole bunch of "point product" competitors: Quark against InDesign; CorelDraw is still alive against Illustrator; Global Graphics against PostScript; Macromedia Dreamweaver against GoLive.

But when I think about competitors, there's only one I really worry about. And it's one that happens to have $35 billion in revenues and $50 billion in the bank. And it happens to be in the software business. Microsoft is the competitor, and it's the one that keeps me up at night.

Fortunately, Microsoft's problems and challenges are so great that as a competitor, it is less of a threat to Adobe.

A few observations from the article:

Chizen doesn't even qualify Freehand as giving Illustrator competition any longer.

The article focuses on Adobe's enterprise products—existing and hinted at. Photoshop and the other creative applications for which Adobe is best known are mentioned anecdotally.

In recent years Adobe has refocused its brand from the warm and fuzzy creative pro's best friend, to a repositioned network publishing and document systems giant. This is evidenced by the former Adobe tagline "The Network Publishing Leader" and the more oblique current "Tools For The New Work." Still, Chizen believes Adobe is true to its origins.

Chizen candidly touches on, however briefly, the struggles he faces between building the company and "making sure that the employees feel as if their job is relatively secure".

In case anyone forgot, Chizen runs down the the Adobe vs. Microsoft score card. At this point in the game the Redmond team is behind by 5.

A subtle driving home of the point that Adobe is cooler than Microsoft:  "Meanwhile, we get to partner with all Microsoft's enemies because we're a great alternative and we don't really compete head-on with any of its big competitors. That's our strategy against Microsoft."

For more on this story read Scobelizer:  Microsoft Geek Blogger

Think Secret is giving some ink to Office 2004 and various new and upgraded Microsoft offerings for the Mac. Of note…

• Entourage 2004 will have a much more robust database structure, limited in size only by the user's harddrive space.

• In Entourage 2004 Mac users will finally have the Microsoft-authored project management features for which they've been clamoring.

• As a result of the Entourage project management features, Microsoft is exploring the possibility of porting that technology to Windows, thus creating a scaled down version of Project.

• Office Assistants will be turned off by default [I was going to include a link to the Kill Clippy game, but Microsoft has taken it offline].

• PowerPoint 2004, while still holding many features over KeyNote, won't rise to meet KeyNote's text rendering.

• Since Microsoft is not developing IE for the Mac any longer, the entire IE for Mac Team has been dismantled.

• MSN Messenger 4 for Mac is indeed a reality, and it will probably be pretty cool.

• Office 2004 will have Unicode support.

Some highlights from the article:

To get the already-delayed follow-up to Windows XP out the door by 2006, Microsoft has decided to omit some of the most ambitious features…

Microsoft had planned to overhaul the file system, the way information is stored. The goal had been to change the way files relate to one another, so that users could quickly find documents, e-mail, and photos that have some connection to one another. It would be easy, for example, to locate not just digital photos, but e-mail from people in them. It's an enormous undertaking.

To get Longhorn out the door in its new timeframe, Microsoft has curbed its ambition….

"It's fair to say we've had very ambitious dreams that were very large for Longhorn," Peterson said in the Apr. 1 meeting. "Some of the things that we do in the big dream, we are going to do in the Blackcomb time frame." When will Blackcomb debut? Probably near the end of the decade…

Microsoft's in-house research found that many PC users have no brand preference for Windows XP vs. earlier versions of the software.

XP Reloaded is designed to change that…

Premium will be available only on new PCs, not in boxes at retail. The new media player software lets online music stores — including one that Microsoft plans to launch later this year — snap right into the design, so that users can easily buy music from inside the player application.