Microsoft Just Says No to .Doc Replacement Panel

Schlemphfer writes "OASIS is a nonprofit consortium backed by top technology companies, and the purpose of this organization is to set open standards for desktop and business software. They've just announced a working group that will create an XML-based document format standard for openoffice.org. And even though Microsoft is a member of Oasis, they aren't going to be taking part in this group. It's a logical move on Bill's part, considering that standardized XML docs are sure to weaken the hold that Microsoft's proprietary .doc format has on business software."

Comments

It's easy to paint this in an anti-Microsoft light

[Sheetrock]

If you look at this with a technical eye, however, you recognize a few things that Microsoft probably picked up on:

• First, although XML seems more 'open', in reality it is simply a higher-level encoding that may or may not be easier to understand but is guaranteed to both take longer to parse and take up more space than the conventional .doc format because of the size of the tags, making this a downgrade 'optimization' of both speed and size -- where is the win here?
• Microsoft owns .doc, however XML is still a wildcard; are there submarine patents on the technology running silent and deep waiting for just the right moment to blow a hole in Microsoft's pocketbook? We've talked about this sort of thing on ./ before.
• Lack of features -- there's a reason people are still using .doc and .pdf instead of HTML, and giving HTML a fancier name for the new millenium isn't going to change it. Anything tougher than bold, italics, and tables has been proven to be an O(n^2) representation in HTML and has been neglected because nobody wants to download a meg of webpage.

So please, understand that while it would be cool for Microsoft to adopt these new standards, economically speaking they're doing the right thing.

Microsoft is dying.

[grub]

Fact: Microsoft is dying

We should all keep in mind this simple truth: Microsoft is dying.

You don't need to be Kreskin to predict Microsoft's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Microsoft faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Microsoft because Microsoft is dying. Things are looking very bad for Microsoft. As many of us are already aware, Microsoft continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Famed Microsoft persona Bill Gates states that there are 7000 new Windows users every nanosecond. How many new users of FreeBSD is there? Let's see. The number of Microsoft versus FreeBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 7000 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 FreeBSD users. OpenBSD posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of FreeBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of OpenBSD. A recent article put Apple at about 80 percent of the OS market in the graphics business. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 OpenBSD users. This is consistent with the number of Apple Computer Usenet posts. Due to the troubles of Microsoft's state of security, abysmal adoption of WinME and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by Walnut Creek. Now Walnut Creek is also dead,its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Microsoft has steadily declined in market share. Microsoft is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Microsoft is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyists, dabblers, and dilettantes. Microsoft continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Microsoft is dead

Fact: Microsoft is dying

MOD PARENT UP

[Christianfreak]

This is a great idea. Something that Open Source software in general has needed for a long time. Put me in $10 when you get the corporate sponser :)

Re:What I don't understand...

[isli]

The monopoly settlement should make microsoft have to pay for it like the tobacco companies are funding the anti-smoking ads :)

Re:VBA

[cscx]

Moving your lemonade stand's staff to OpenOffice just doesn't count.

PS/PDF

[forgoil]

Why not an open replacement to PS/PDF as well? Or would Adobe be fearful of open standards as well?

How about open quicktime (sörensen to be precise), WMA, MPEG, etc as well?

Don't go blind with M$ hating, they are not the only culprits in this after all.