With Windows Vista Microsoft plans to introduce its own proprietary alternative to the universal JPEG protocol. Undoubtedly aiming to replace it. I consider that bad news.
Exactly like I never use Apple's AAC format, but stick to MP3 because of its universal compatibility.

So will it be Bill's next monopoly?
Only if we, users, fall for it!

Micro$haft announcement

If this had happened in '98 then it might have been but I think people and companies are far more savvy to microsofts shenanigans these days and it will be quite a bit harder that it might have been in the past. Of course if Adobe was to come up with a rival then I wouldn't complain. The fact is that I will use whatever is best suited to the purpose when working, if the microsoft is better then I'm not going to boycott it to make a point. It will however take quite a while if ever for microsoft to gain the confidence of manufacturers to the point that the latest canon/nikon cameras are shooting the new format instead of jpg. Formats don't get that quickely accepted.

This will be an interestig debate over the coming months/ years to see who wins out between Microsoft's WMPhoto Spec and Adobe's Tiff format. The microsoft specification, though positioned as an evolution of the JPEG standard,is closer in format to Adobe's Tiff format. Of particular interest to photographers is that The Micorosft WMPhoto defines both colour spaces (OK, so we can debate how detailed the spec is in this area) and also 8, 16 and floating point precision plus lossy and lossless encoding.

This will be one helluva codec to fully implement, though obviously a camera manufacturer will pick and choose which parts they want to support.

Whatever anyones perceptions/views of Microsoft it is about time that Adobe had some competition for file format mind share and development - Tiff evoution/development has virtually stagnated and DNG isn't going anywhere particularly quickly.