What do all these new products have in common, apart from the Microsoft logo? They are all PC- and Windows-centric, Microsoft's blather about open standards to the contrary.

Microsoft Reader, the subject of our focus here, pays lip service to something called the Open eBook standard (the Open eBook Publication Structure specification, to be precise), which the company helped develop. Yet despite the fact that this spec is based on HTML and XML, which are open Web standards, Microsoft Reader is offered only for Windows machines and the underachieving Pocket PC format. There are apparently no plans to offer a Mac or Palm version.

The product itself is fairly impressive, with a couple of major caveats. First, ClearType offers no readily discernible advantage over Adobe's PDF format, at least not on a typical computer monitor. We compared Microsoft Reader and Adobe's Acrobat Reader version 4.05 on a Dell-branded 17" Trinitron monitor; both offered crisp, highly legible type that nonetheless exhibited the faint blurring effect that typifies antialiasing. (Adobe is working on a cross-platform alternative called CoolType, which it claims will be better.) Microsoft asserts that ClearType scales better than PDF does, but we saw no evidence of this.

The product's other drawback, apart from its Windows-only availability, is an extremely tedious "activation" process. Granted, this software is intended to provide copyright protection for publishers—Microsoft still makes you jump through too many hoops to install it. In contrast, Adobe's version of Acrobat Reader with "Web Buy" is much easier, and cross-platform to boot.

Criticisms aside, once you have the program up and running, Microsoft Reader is pleasant to use. Navigation is straightforward and intuitive, the "Library" feature is convenient and the search and annotation functions seem to work well. This is a viable, if not yet ideal, way to read.

The e-book sweepstakes are just getting under way, and partnerships and formats are still being decided. Microsoft Reader, which has alliances with Barnes and Noble (and now, with Amazon.com), is the company's initial attempt to grab market share in this new territory. And it would represent a credible attempt, were it not for the company's exclusionary stance. Although we didn't test it, we would imagine the product comes into its own on a Pocket PC device. We certainly prefer reading on a handheld to a computer screen, but for now we'll stick with Palm and imaginative, platform-agnostic Web-based publishers like Online Originals and peanutpress.com.

(Reviewed October 2, 2000)