Microsoft working with partners to promote Windows Presentation Foundation

Microsoft working with partners to promote Windows Presentation Foundation

Software giant Microsoft is working hard on getting ahead of Adobe with partnerships with media companies. The company announced that as many as three major news publishers are already working on using Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) display technology for their digital reader applications.

These three Microsoft partners are: Associated Newspapers Ltd., Forbes Inc. and Hearst Corp. Out of these, Hearst Corp. already has a beta version of its news reader for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. They call it the ‘P-I Reader‘ and it is already available for download.

George B. Irish, president of Hearst Newspapers said in a statement on this initiative: “At Hearst, we are constantly looking for new ways to reach our readers. It is clear that digital delivery and consumption are critical to the future success of the newspaper industry. We are very excited to be collaborating with Microsoft on this new application. We are delighted to begin the development of this technology in Seattle and intend to expand to our other major newspaper markets in the near future.”

The company has developed the P-I Reader application to be used for both offline and online reading. It can store up to six days of archived news content. It currently supports the Windows XP and Vista operating systems and Microsoft plans to add support for alternative platforms including the Apple Mac OS.