Office 2003 and XML

zachlipton writes "Internet World is reporting that initial reports from Office 2003 beta testers don't look good for those hoping to share documents with non-MS systems using the XML file format. Gary Edwards, the OpenOffice.org representative for the OASIS XML file-format group is quoted as saying "although it's still early in the review process, it does look as though XP XML has been so seriously crippled as to be useless to anyone but the big content management and collaboration system providers." Apparently, all formatting and presentation information is removed from the XML. Furthermore, Office's new collaboration featres will only work with users who are also running Office 2003 (requiring Windows 2000 or 2003) that are connecting over XP servers." So Microsoft will continue its efforts to lock-in users with proprietary formats, and hopefully the rest of the world will produce an XML standard document format without them.

Comments

Have always called it MML

[mpechner]

Microsoft Markup Language. I constantly have users that send me html from office or frontpage and make them go back and use netscape composer or somthing that actually writes HTML or XML. I sometimes wonder if this is real or an accident. Ever read MicroSerfs? A company of fresh out of school engineers that work in their own words until they burn out. I just had to figure out how to use the locale routines. In US enclish computers the ISO 639 abreviation is "en". Microsoft returns "enu". No such thing!

Re:THOSE FUCKING BASTARDS

[smittyoneeach]

Hogwash! The market deserves to die if it buys the stuff.
Those making the purchasing decisions must hoist the middle finger.
And don't say BeelzeBill made you buy it, either.

Re:At some point.....

[frozenray]

Which, I'll point out, is the highest possible price you could pay. Even a token amount of effort would reveal that you can get WinXP Pro for under $100, and WinXP Home for under $75.

That's why I added "(list)" in my original post. $199 is what I pay if I order online from Microsoft for a full version of Windows XP Home. I'm aware that I can get better deals than that, but even $75 is still $75. There's no way I can legally get it for free, like I can with a Linux or BSD distro. The best price I've found locally is around $100 where I live, btw - importing from the US is about as expensive because of taxes and overseas shipping.

You're completely bypassing the fact that you have to do the exact same damned thing with Linux if the drivers aren't on the CD.

I think everyone who has ever done a Linux/BSD installation is very aware of that. This is one area where Windows still outdoes the Free alternatives in my opinion. But it doesn't change the fact that if I want to install Windows on my main system I have to spring up cash, free space on my disk, install the OS and configure it to a usable state in order to use the viewer.

First off, the "Microsoft Tax" is propaganda at its worst.

Here I disagree. I'm in the business long enough to remember when it was impossible to buy a PC from any of the major vendors without paying for a Microsoft operating system license. This is not the case anymore, thanks to the antitrust cases.

Sorry, it doesn't wash. Updates are free.

I meant upgrades, my mistake.

[...] upgrades should cost you something if useful features are added.

Sure, no problem with it. Whenever I feel that some commercial software I own has an upgrade that's worth its money, I pay for it. I still can't remember when apt-get has ever asked me to pay for new versions of packages (with useful features), though.

MS isn't holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to upgrade

That's true. The company I work for can continue to use Windows NT 4.0 for as long as they like. The catch is that Microsoft is retiring the OS, so there will be no updates, no support and no security patches if we choose to go that route. Since we can't take the associated risks, we're practically forced to upgrade to Windows XP, and this in an economic climate where we make huge losses and have to fire employees. In all fairness I have to add that Microsoft has rethought their lifecycle policy and made it more acceptable for large accounts like ours, but that doesn't help us much in our current situation.

Since I've shot down most of your prior arguments, the rest of your post kind of falls flat, so I won't bother addressing the rather poor analogies you've put forward. Suffice to say that it appears you're quite anti-MS in your stances, so much so that you don't bother finding out much in the way of truth before you make your pronouncements.

My argument was that the "free" viewers from Microsoft aren't really free, since I have to pay for and install a Microsoft operating system in order to use them. It wasn't meant as a general attack against Microsoft in any way.

I still think the analogy with the "free" Grappa is solid - try asking the owner of the restaurant if you can have a Grappa without eating dinner at his place. Try asking Microsoft if you can have a free copy of Windows in order to use the "free" viewers. Both will decline, both don't want to go out of business, and that's ok in my book. You're welcome to disagree, but saying "you're quite anti-MS in your stances, so much so that you don't bother finding out much in the way of truth before you make your pronouncements" wasn't justified in view of what I've written. Yes, I happen to like Free software more than you do, but I won't call you stupid or dumb just because you use non-free software. You use whatever works best for you, I'm not in a position to judge that.

Raymond