What is the purpose of XPS

Andy Simonds gives a great overview of what his team is trying to achieve with the new XPS format. His post gives some great insight into some of the functionality they’re looking to achieve, and it’s not just about developing a new file format to throw out there either in case that’s what you were thinking.

People will naturally focus on XPS being a document format and debating whether it is better or worse than PDF, TIFF or any other format that is used to represent graphical content. That’s expected, but I think people really miss the point about what we are trying to do. We are not just trying to build a file format and an end-to-end solution around it. We are trying to build a platform and the file format is just one part of that platform. We want developers not to have to invent their own way to represent content on a page, their own way to package up the content and their own way to sign or rights-manage the content in order to create rich document experiences for their customers. They should be able to leverage these services in the platform and focus their R&D on solving key customer problems.

Read Andy’s complete article: XPS Five Points of Light - Part 4: Platform for Innovation