Why doesn't Windows include native PDF reader support?
f-secure.com
f-secure.com
When it gets used, it's almost exclusively for "Print to PDF". Power Users will use it to combine PDFs, and maybe do some shitty doodling. Occasionally the awful PDF forms functionality gets used, but they usually learn their lesson (easy to make one worse than an MS Access app!)
It's the calf to Microsoft's Office cash cow.
PrimoPDF is another good alternative for enterprise users who just need print to PDF.
- Purchasing-level decisions have to be approved by someone who worries less about the money being spent now than the situation the company will be in later. In other words, if I offer a free alternative to expensive commercial software, they'll be concerned that even though they'll save a few hundred or thousand dollars now, they'll be hamstrung if I ever leave, or if the free software vanishes.
- These decisions are also often made by individuals who are not all that technically inclined, so they're suspicious of what they see as "amateur" versus "professional" (or commercial, or enterprise) software.
- They're concerned about compatibility with their business partners.
- They find many of the things that we like about the representation of free or open source software -- names like "Mozilla", "Firefox", "Thunderbird", "Foxit Reader", the FreeBSD daemon -- to be amateurish and annoying.
Yes, that leaves the door wide open for startups. However, there's a reason why this tends to be the pattern as businesses go from "startup" to "enterprise".
Basically the incentives of the typical purchasing department are not well-aligned with the interests of the corporation as a whole.
I don't know about "typical" purchasing departments (or personnel), but in the example I was giving, they actually are working in the interests of the corporation.
My point was that the interests of the corporation -- in this example -- are different from the interests of those who devote more of their time to their computers.
Here's one more anecdote: this same client recently replaced my inexpensive, well-tuned, up-to-date, carefully-configured OpenBSD firewall for their network with an off-the-shelf SonicWall device. That annoyed me, to say the least, and I'm of the opinion that the move has made their network less secure overall. On the other hand, I also realize that now they have a device with a simple, easy-to-understand interface, so when they choose to replace me with a full-time employee, they won't have to worry about whether the employee has any OpenBSD experience. It also guarantees that I'm not hiding any funky backdoors in their firewall, and hey, if there is a network incursion, then they can go after the SonicWall company ... versus not having anyone to catch the fault in the case that the OpenBSD box gets rooted.
I don't want to come across as mean here, but honestly, if someone can't understand why corporations aren't using more open source software, then they don't have much experience with corporations.
Or, you can look at it from the POV of firewalls and AV is needed to fight flaws in their product. Should they be prohibited from defending their own product, even if it isn't a direct patch => resolution but a prevention?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_compet...
Here, free PDF reader with annotations, blazingly fast: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/
Not saying that foxit is not good, I use it all the time in windows, but it is not a full featured free pdf utility.
Wow, I've been missing out! I use PDFLab to do all but the first of these tasks; I didn't realise OS X had a built-in solution. How do I do it?
That might explain its relative ubiquity.
"Heck, you don't even need to build it into the OS. Just make it an optional download such as your Save As PDF add-in for Office."
And:
"Your customers are tired of the exploits and the complications that so many of today's PDF readers include."
The authors are asking Microsoft to write an application that reads PDFs and isn't Adobe Reader. My point is that such an application already exists, is free to download and use, and is both faster and more secure than Adobe's reader.
It does a mediocre job of rendering, and isn't faster than Acrobat if you strip out all of Adobe's lame plugins (we put plugins in your plugins so you can extend while you embrace!)