The father of the PDF document, Adobe Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE), is starting to push further into the web-based document creation business. That strategy puts it squarely in the cross-hairs of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and its excellent Google Docs product, as well as software giant Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), which is set to release a major online component with Office 2010.

Adobe indicated that a fee-based version its new online initiatives would allow businesses to covert all kinds of documents to the de-facto PDF standard, as well as hold online meetings via Acrobat.com.

I predict that, for the rest of the summer, all news of Microsoft, Inc. will be tinged by the impending departure of Bill Gates from day-to-day operations. Who will take his mantle? Who else will leave? And, grandly, what will be his legacy?

Steve Hamm of BusinessWeek wonders, will Gates be remembered for his innovations and good works, or for his anti-competitive "bare-knuckle tactics"? Hamm's conclusion seems to be that Gates deserves the Carnegie legacy (as opposed to Rockefeller) thanks to the thousands of millionaires he minted and the great works he's already begun to do with his foundation.

Evidently, the legacy didn't look great to investors (or maybe they're just still smarting over Google's success in capturing Adobe's heart, an obvious snub of Microsoft in favor of the company's oogly rival), as the stock was down 20 cents to $22.88.

Adobe's behavior with regards to Microsoft's attempt to include the ability to create PDF files out of Microsoft Office documents is, according to the Washington Post, "at best arrogance, at worst price collusion -- a violation of basic antitrust law." First Adobe told the world at large that it should feel free to utilize the company's PDF standard. And then Adobe let a number of other word processors do just that -- including, notably, Microsoft Word's biggest competitor, WordPerfect.

Then Adobe did a mid-stream switcheroo, and told Microsoft that if it wanted to include PDF creation ability in Microsoft Office 2007, the software manufacturer needed to charge separately for the feature. If not? A lawsuit would naturally follow.

Microsoft did the same thing I would have done: pulled PDF support from Office. And the Post's Rob Pegoraro wishes "that the bad old Microsoft would reemerge for this one occasion and tell Adobe to go pound sand," while admitting that many analysts with a sense of history remember that Microsoft has a habit of somehow poisoning standards when it incorporates them into its software packages.