This does not mean it's punishment for anything webmaster did with their site, such as using Spam or anything like that. The probation likely don't apply to web site, but instead to backlinks. After link stays on web site for a certain amount of time it will no longer be on probation and fully counted as a backlink to your web site. Even if your site is better than your competitors it will still be in Sandbox.

Besides delivering a critical blow to competitive balance of two highly recognized and respected companies, it has inadvertently created a new form of optimization.

That's right. PDF optimization.

The main technology that Adobe wanted from Macromedia was Flash. Now that they have it, they will be able to incorporate all power of Flash into a PDF. With one fell swoop, they have changed face of search engine optimization.

As a site owner, I can now potentially have my entire site reside within content of a PDF. Sure, it was textually available before, but now I can even have compressed video, dynamically generated content and visually appealing content conveniently wrapped up into web's only cross-compatible portable platform.

No more worries about having a Flash player installed - that will be incorporated into PDF reading software. No more worrying about needing Quicktime and Media Player versions of video clips. They'll all be in Flash.

Not only is PDF web friendly, but it is also PDA and Kiosk ready. Now content can be delivered anywhere to any device that can read a pdf. It can also be included on CD's, DVD's and even your cell phone.

From a user perspective, this is awesome. From a search engine perspective, it is great to push boundaries, but we may also see end of optimizing for client sites, instead a client will pay a one-time fee to optimize a pdf.