The big difference between Microsoft and Adobe is, Adobe is reasonable about things. I can find about a half dozen 3rd party PDF distillers for the Mac, and I'm sure there are more for Windows. Adobe's goal with PDF was to provide a standard everyone could use, and they've stuck to that plan.
Microsoft, on the other hand, will come out with something neat, and when enough people have adopted it, change things so folks will have to change to keep using it and pay for the privilege.
RTF is a good example of this. Microsoft created RTF, offering it for free. It was popular. Microsoft told themselves, "We could make money off of this." So they came up with an 'upgrade' and charged for it. And they made sure the old RTF was not entirely compatible with the new RTF.
Furthermore, while they had made old RTF a tight, well coded app they went back to their old, sloppy habits when coding the new RTF. Thus the need these days for RTF cleaners and RTF viewers.
When it comes to maximizing their profits, Microsoft does it with all the diplomacy of a starving cat.
The Microsoft corporate philosophy is short-sighted and rude. Apple, in its own way, is being just as short-sighted, because OSX could be ported to the PC with just a bit of tweaking. But Jobs wants people to buy Macs to use OSX on, and won't contenance the alternative.
But it Apple could develop a Free BSD based OS to use on Macs, then a Free BSD based OS to use on PCs can be done. All that's needed is the corporate courage to do so. But as long as PC manufacturers and software developers let Microsoft have its way I doubt the courage will ever develop.
