Another Request for an InfoPath Viewer

If Microsoft were to create an InfoPath viewer what features would you want? Why do I ask? Today Doug Staubach made an interesting comment on one of my previous blog entries about his desire for even a simple InfoPath Viewer. I thought his request was worth repeating.

The vendor solution listed above doesn't solve my problem: (See original post commentsfor for context)

We have been using Infopath to capture data using simple forms. The data is stored in XML docs with a 'hard-coded' reference to the InfoPath template (XSN file). This works fine as long as the XML doc can "find" the template on a publicly-accessible server, but our server is private.

The problem comes when we need to copy these forms to CD and view them "off-line", or send them (via email) to people outside our own organization (people that do not have Infopath).

Theoretically, we could XSN file along with the XML file, and with just a little bit of tweaking (changing the hard-coded path in the XML file), it would be possible for someone outside of our network to open and use the files.

I say theoretically, because the only tool that knows how to mesh all of this information into a single document is InfoPath itself. (Which is not widely distributed).

If someone were to create an INFOPATH VIEWER (a small executable that has the ability to mesh the two files, display the results on screen, and allow printing), and if this executable could be distributed royalty-free and downloaded from a website, then we could bundle our InfoPath docs (XML and XSN) alng with the viewer, and send the whole thing to people outside our network. {In past years, Micrsoft created a PowerPoint viewer, Word viewer, and Access Snapshot viewer to resolve these kinds of problems).

Has anyone heard of a tool like this?
(Thanks)

Two other interesting tidbits: (1) I've actually had a handful of emails from people requesting the same thing. (2) InfoPath Viewer has ranked as a top 10 search on OfficeZealot.com for 6 months.

I'm not a brain surgeon (just an Office developer) but I don't think this request is going to go away any time soon. In my humble opinion, an InfoPath viewer would be a great move on Microsoft's part to promote InfoPath adoption.