Re: HTML vs Adobe Acrobat

[David Blyth <dblyth -at- QUALCOMM -dot- COM>]

Hi All;

I have a meeting in 8 minutes, so this will be blessedly short.

>>      But I will say that the Web is driven by HTML, not PDF. I'm
>>      guessing that Arlen and I agree on this.

>Pretty much. But I am probably more pessimistic about how long that will
>last than you are. It's just that I've never seen Microsoft abide by an
>open standard.

Netscape still controls 80% of the browser market - and you have to
_pay_ to get them.  Perhaps we disagree simply based on our perceptions
of the Market.  MS has recently succeeded in getting AOL to drop their
suit (thrills) in exchange for AOL using MS's browser (oh boy.  what a
deal).  That brings MS up to a whopping 12% of the market - if _every_
AOL user switches to MS.

Glance at www.interse.com for more detailed Web trends - but long-term,
and from what I see from here, people are _still_ shifting over to
Netscape.  The Internet may be too big even for MS.

>>o PDF still focuses on making information look paper-like.

>This summarizes all your reasons for preferring HTML, and it's a mistaken
>assumption.

Nope.  My reasons for preferring HTML are that it connects to the
Internet.  PDF does not.  It may seem like I'm stating things the
other way around, but the distinction  is important.  What drives
me is _not_ whether something is paper like - but whether or not
it connects to the Internet.


>      The bottom line is my conviction that paper is gradually being
>      replaced by the Internet.  And I continue to be dedicated to
>      communicating technical content on the medium of choice.

>In many ways you're right. But where we part company is in the assertion
>that PDF is paper. It isn't, any more than web "pages" are.

I'll think about this some more.  Gotta run!


David (The Man) Blyth
Technical Writer & Web Site Designer
Qualcomm

The usual disclaimers apply - I don't speak for QUALCOMM, they don't speak
for me....