How Important Is Acrobat 5?--McIlroy

The implications of PDF's incorporation of the XML standard are more difficult to evaluate. At first glance, PDF's relatively closed structure appears to be completely at odds with XML's far-reaching vocabulary and functionality.

XML is designed to turn mere documents into micro-structured, database-driven information repositories. Can XML-encoding within a PDF capsule offer users the best of both worlds? Will we be able to access PDF's secure and graphically strong power, and extend that to XML's multifunctional capacities? If a document is encoded with XML, can PDF still add significant value?