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Is the New Microsoft Office Really Open?
joesklein asks: "From CNET, there is an article about the new Microsoft Office 11. In summary 'Microsoft says it's opening its Office desktop software by adding support for XML--a move that should help companies free up access to shared information. But there's a catch: It has yet to disclose the underlying XML dialect.' Could this be grounds for another anti-trust suit against Microsoft?"
it supports .DOC, the de facto standard for documents. What's this XML you're talking about?
Yes, mister Hairtrigger, we should sue Microsoft simply because they won't release trade secrets. We will surely win.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=3D"Content-Type" CONTENT=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Dus-ascii">
<meta name=3DGenerator content=3D"Microsoft Word 10 (filtered)">
<style>
<!--
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.emailstyle17
{font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;}
span.emailstyle18
{font-family:Arial;
color:navy;}
span.EmailStyle19
{font-family:Arial;
color:navy;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
</head>
<body lang=3DEN-US link=3Dblue vlink=3Dpurple>
<div class=3DSection1>
<p class=3DMsoNormal><font size=3D2 color=3Dnavy face=3DArial><span =
style=3D'font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;
I agree.
</span></font></p>
Oh no! Heaven forbid someone extend the eXtensible Markup Language!
:-)
frob.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
The difference between Microsoft and their competitors is that MS is willing to take a long-term view:
:-(
1) Establish a monopoly on office productivity software
2) Profit!
3) See income drop once everyone has Office. Market saturation!
4) Less Profit
5) Release new Office with new file formats; use monopoly to get it pre-loaded on all new PCs.
6) Eventually everyone else upgrades Office in order to read new file formats they're getting from their co-workers.
7) Profit!
8) Release new OS with filesystem that looks like a database.
9) Release YAO (Yet Another Office) [see 5 & 6] that only works with new database/filesystem in new OS.
10) Now, not only do the masses have to upgrade Office to read co-workers files, they have to upgrade Windows as well.
11) Profit!!!!!
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
the Love Caculator demonstrates that
Draw your own conclusions. cute little widget.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"