At the WinHEC keynote in April, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates previewed Metro, the company's next-generation, XML-based, electronic-document initiative that is expected to become available at around the same time Windows Longhorn is released.
In conjunction with Microsoft's announcement of Metro, UK-based software company Global Graphics announced that for the last two years it has been working closely with Microsoft to develop Metro's specifications. At WinHEC, Global Graphics demonstrated ways in which the printing industry might make use of Metro once it becomes available.
Recently, PDFzone sat down with Dr. Adrian Ford, Global Graphics' chief technology officer, to discuss Metro's functionalities and his company's involvement with its development.
PDFzone: Please give us an overview of Metro.
Dr. Adrian Ford: Metro is really three different things in one.
First off, it's a new document file format, similar in many ways to PDF.
It's also a spool format. When you print on a Windows or a Mac computer, the print system has a format that it uses to communicate the data through the print subsystem and spool it to the device.
And it's also a page description language, similar to PCL PostScript, that can be used to transmit that information all the way down to a printer, where it turns into the data that comes out on a piece of paper.
In addition to this format, there is also a new printing subsystem. Microsoft announced they're fixing a number of the printing bottlenecks and issues in the current Windows subsystem by implementing a new architecture for printing that includes Metro as a key foundation of that architecture.
Click here to read more about Microsoft's "Metro" and analysts' reactions to the demonstration at WinHEC.
PDFzone: Given that it is expected to become available at the same time as Longhorn, is Metro specifically being designed for Longhorn?
Ford: It's tied to Longhorn, but it's part of what [Microsoft is] calling WinFX. WinFX is going to be available on Longhorn, Windows XP and Windows 2003. So the time scales are the same as Longhorn, but the potential install base is much bigger than the Longhorn platform.
Read the full interview on PDFzone: A Look Inside Microsoft's 'Metro' Document Format
