Nitro PDF and activePDF might be small players on the PDF landscape, but together they're challenging Adobe Acrobat's commanding share of the desktop software market. 

PDF use in the office—encompassing corporate, governmental, and educational offices—comprises a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle almost impossible to describe in a few words, but here goes: People create the majority of office PDFs from apps or utilities (Acrobat, its competitors, or freeware) on their desktop machines or using free web services such as Google Docs or BCL Technology's PDFonline.com. Then, most of those PDFs get passed around via email or organized into web page downloads.

Adobe used to call this type of PDF-making activity "ad hoc workflows," a phrase that makes them sound informal, and possibly messy and disheveled. And, of course, in need of Adobe's Cadillac LiveCycle server apps to transform them into big-boy enterprise workflows.

Yet this is how most of us make PDFs at work. Some of us use Acrobat on the desktop to crank out PDFs or have the good fortune to be wired into servers for PDF-making, but a lot more of us use free apps like PrimoPDF or freeware print drivers on the PC side. Microsoft even offers a free PDF export utility.  Macintosh users get PDF export ability free with the OS.

Over the years, no one—not even Adobe itself, despite a couple of solid attempts—has been able to come up with an inexpensive Acrobat alternative that controls any significant mindshare of the office market. There are products out there that do the job, but none has asserted itself to the point that people know its name as they do the name of a product like, say, PowerPoint. Global Graphics' Jaws PDF is definitely a player, as is Nitro PDF. Don't forget about Nuance's suite of office apps. Corel WordPerfect also handles PDF; its upcoming new version will be a part of this conversation. Another dark horse, PDF995, uses banner ads to pay the bills.

But none of these is a household name to the average office worker.

Can Nitro PDF grab the mantle? It hasn't exploded onto the tip of every office worker's tongue yet, but moves like the partnership with activePDF to be announced tomorrow at AIIM prove that Nitro's feisty Aussies have a few tricks up their sleeves.

In the worst-case scenario for activePDF and Nitro, the deal will mean business as usual; there's nothing to lose. In the best case, Nitro PDF Professional ($99) will make inroads into the office market that Acrobat Pro ($449) or Standard ($299) can't because it's just too expensive.

Of course, like everyone in the PDF world, Chandler gives Adobe its due, especially in light of its recent handing over to ISO the PDF file specification as an open standard.

"Adobe' s position at the center of the PDF universe should never be underestimated," Chandler says. "We know that they appreciate the ecosystem that has built up around the format, because it is that ecosystem that propelled PDF to the mainstream. Nitro is a major player in that ecosystem now, and it has been made possible only by the opening up of the format."

That's giving props to Adobe, probably not easy for him—considering that Nitro's a company that was tight with Adobe until it essentially burned its bridge by coming out with its Acrobat competitor in April 2005.

"Up until the launch, our relationship with Adobe was very strong," Chandler says. "As one of the major Acrobat plug-in developers, we were a member of the Adobe Solutions Network and closer to Adobe than most.

"As soon as Nitro was released, the relationship went from great to non-existent overnight. We were no longer welcome in the ASN, and Adobe withdrew their Planet PDF sponsorship. We no longer enjoy the close personal relationships with Adobe staffers that had characterized our earlier interactions with the company."

If this were a game of Texas hold-em, Chandler and Co. would be calling "all in." Here's a frosty Foster's toast to their success, because competition with Adobe drives innovation from all parties, and the desktop PDF user can only benefit from that.