But wait, there's more.

For users who enjoy frustration, there's also RMS (Rights Management Services). Configure this on your Windows Server 2003 network, and users can assign extremely specific controls over who sees what, when, and what rights they might have to modify it. In other words, it's Acrobat with all kinds of additional brains. And these brains can be applied to any Windows file, including all the Office formats. So now, it looks like Microsoft will provide us with three ways to get exactly the same thing in Office 12.

Meanwhile, the non-Redmond community is screaming bloody murder about the superiority of the OpenDoc standard, and how anybody who isn't a complete Microsoft shill should be using that format and nothing else. I'm sick of it.

Microsoft should get its Office formats act together. Three technologies that take you to exactly the same place is two technologies too many. Here's my recipe:

1. Support PDF; Adobe beat you there, live with it. 2. Drop XPS and make some form of RMS free functionality under Office 12 with the new Office back-end server. Now you've got them coming and going with way more functionality than anything else, and there's no need to go further.