Gates Embraces Web Service Interoperability

djh101010 writes "In a CNN article which looks more like something out of The Onion, Bill Gates expresses his interest in participating in interoperability with rival technologies, through common standards. Specifically mentioned are IBM's WebSphere, and Linux. 'We're being as inclusive as we can,' Gates said of Microsoft's role in the cross-platform project. 'This is a fabric for someone to do e-commerce that's independent of the operating systems that are out there.'

Comments

XML

[Plix]

We all know how Gates "embraced" XML for Office 11...

Re:XML

[EnigmaticSource]

Gates said the Redmond, Washington-based company's work toward Web services standards would be "royalty free." That remark led to questions from the audience, which wanted to make sure Gates hadn't misstated the deviation from the company's royalty-based software sales model. "I can't believe I said that," Gates joked.

Re:XML

[molarmass192]

The namespace schemas are proprietary and redistribution is not permitted. No namespace schema, no way to make sense of what's in the XML.

Re:XML

[HiThere]

I can believe he said it. He says lots of things. Follow through, however, is frequently significantly different from the initial promise.

Sounds like dot-com era dreaming

[merlin_jim]

I mean this seriously made me think of 99. Obligatory /. .com business plan?

1. Create interoperable standards so users can migrate from one OS to another without rewriting code
2. ????
3. Profit!

Except I have a strong suspicion that number 2 is:

2. Erode competitions' standing in marketplace and watch customers gradually migrate to your software, because migration is no longer a hassle

Re:Sounds like dot-com era dreaming

[*weasel]

it's not standards to avoid code rewriting, it's interoperability standards for web services.
basically a framework to sit atop SOAP, for common application standards (security,transaction control,etc).

you'll still be OSvendor-locked when you write your web service code; but a web service consumer (website end developer) could choose a web service provider with OS-independence.

this isn't as ground-shaking as it sounds.
it's analogous to microsoft's embracing of HTML.

it will be supported (as IE supports w3c html) - and then doubtlessly extended through proprietary means (simplistic analogy to the IE-specific 'marquee' tag), to benefit those who use MS (can only see 'marque' if you use IE). while the extensions won't be necessary to participate (you dont necessarily -need- to see 'marquee'), they're hoping for a critical mass of developers to use their extensions (lots of sites using ) to encourage users to switch over, further incentivizing developers to use their extensions. (enter: feedback loop + network effect)

'marquee' being a simplistic and not very rich example for the analogy, i know - but you get the idea.

Re:Sounds like dot-com era dreaming

[proj_2501]

Guh, seeing a tag is not a benefit.

Bear Hug

[Jad LaFields]

And by "embrace", he means "bone-crushing bear hug".

Re:Bear Hug

[I am Kobayashi]

embrace
n.
1. An act of holding close with the arms, usually as an expression of affection; a hug.
2. An enclosure or encirclement: caught in the jungle's embrace.
3. Eager acceptance: your embrace of Catholicism.

To paraphrase...

[weeboo0104]

If you can't beat 'em, join em...
...then beat 'em.

Re:To paraphrase...

[jafuser]

"It is you and your abilities the Emperor wants. That is why your friends are made to suffer"

"It's a trap!"

Microsoft FUD

[segment]

Gates said the Redmond, Washington-based company's work toward Web services standards would be "royalty free." That remark led to questions from the audience, which wanted to make sure Gates hadn't misstated the deviation from the company's royalty-based software sales model.

Royalty free? Not if SCO can do something about that. What I found a bit odd, would be his comments on standards: "Standards are always a give-to-get bargain," he said. Standards are also done on behalf of everyone for everyone in order to make services work the right way. It's the only way to get products working with eatch other. So for one, he is not obligated to participate in any standards, but at the same time he is as if he doesn't, his products might not perform well under other vendors' products. So in essence whether he likes it or not, he is obligated if he wants to stay in the game and make money. As for the Netscape mention, personally I don't see Netscape as being around too long as a browser considering Netscape's parent AOL recently signed a deal with Microsoft. Just my two coppers...

Heh, the key phrase is...

[Ratphace]

..."Standards are always a give-to-get bargain," he said.

In other words, they are giving so they can get something which in the end they can use to further lock out other applications and companies from being compatible.

A famous quote comes to mind:

"I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts." --Virgil

Be curious to find out how they will try to spin this to their advantage while disadvantaging everyone else.

although....

[freidog]

CNN did note it was odd Gates kept snickering and chuckeling to himself while making the statements.
and was heard to utter You think they bought it? as he left the interview.

The usual tactic

[FunWithHeadlines]

Nothing new here. Every now and then Gates does something nice or friendly or inclusive. Maybe it's for humanitarian purposes such as through his foundation. Maybe it's motivated by a need for better PR. Maybe it's motivated by something else. Doesn't matter.

The point is just because he said lots of fuzzy words today it doesn't mean he won't try to "cut off the oxygen supply" of those same groups tomorrow. Is he suddenly buddy-buddy with Linux? Nope, his company is still fighting it tooth and nail around the world, putting out FUD, doing whatever it takes to head it off at the pass.

Good PR moments such as this do not negate the overall approach Gates will take. Do not be fooled, he's the same old monopolist.

IBM has not learned ?

[watzinaneihm]

IBM should have learned from OS/2 about partnering with Microsoft. Currently they are very pro Java , for example take a look at their developer website.
Since IBM does not have a decent web/app server they probably are trying to get a foot in the door for their .NET suite.
I have so far understood their "embrace" part. But what I don't get is where does the "annihilate" part come in? By standardising the XML standards Java also benefits, right? So how does M$ plan to screw Java and IBM

Re:OK I'll bite...

[Xerithane]

This is something I'm thinking about here... I'm probably not going to respond to any comments in this thread, don't take it personally I just doubt I'll have the time.

Why do you assume Bill Gates et al. is making the same mistake that a lot of other businesses make? For example, the RIAA member companies and several others. Everybody says, "Jeez, these business people are dumb and are fighting the inevitable."

What if Microsoft realized two things:

1. Linux isn't going away.
   
2. You get free shit from them.
   

Effectively meaning that they can start to actually embrace and integrate services, and actually expand and mutate their business model based on the economy and world, rather than what everybody perceives as their business model.

I was chatting with a SCORE member, and he said that a true business plan should be a living entity that evolves with the world around it. Why is it so hard to believe that the most successful software company doesn't heed that advice?

Microsoft is hedging its bets.

[crazyphilman]

Bill Gates (to himself): "Hmm... Everyone hates me, and everyone is aligned against me, creating their own web services standards and ensuring that I won't completely capture the market. Let's see... This implies that they might take a significant part of the market, and if I'm not interoperable, I'll be essentially locked out. Ah, well, screw it."

(calls up Ballmer)

Bill Gates: "Hey, Steve -- do me a favor, would you? Round up some of our better R+D guys, and have them work up a system that lets us totally interoperate with all the other, competing web services systems out there, wouldja?"

Ballmer: "WTF???"

Bill Gates: "Why lock ourselves out of a big chunk of the market? We've got our section, now we can play with their section too."

Ballmer: "Ok, I'm on it..."

This is strictly hypothetical, but I bet it's pretty close.

What this really means... nothing to lose?

[Rahga]

I mean, come on, think about it.... One of the big problems with every major dotcom in the last few years is the fact that none of them could escape the fact that they were one of a ton of small fish in a big pong. Just go to google and type in a search for "Operating System", Windows and Microsoft aren't even on the radar.

If this stuff (what little there is) is true, this probably is just extends what Gates has known for a while, in spite of .NET.... Internet Explorer is nothing more than a tool for the vast majority of users, something to help them get to websites that they want to go and facilitate interactions there. Passport Wallets did not become a de facto internet must-have.... Too many people don't shop on the web, spammers have trained the vast majority of internet users not to instinctively trust anyone (even Verisign, a _trust_ company, betrayed the trust of people with other domain registars with sleazy marketing tactics).... I recon Microsoft sees strength in themselves only by trying to keep their software updated and operating as people expect it to operate, along with traditional software sales, because their services from Passport to Hotmail to MSN probably don't account for anything more than a pittance.

Just my opinion.

Re:In other news

[kurosawdust]

the sun has collided into the earth and China has become a democratic nation.

in that order??

Exactly

[Carnage4Life]

We all know how Gates "embraced" XML for Office 11...

You mean how Microsoft shipped XML vocabularies compliant to the W3C XML 1.0 recommendation with schemas for the XML formats used by Word and Excel, stylesheets to convert WordML to HTML, and Office products like InfoPath that use over a dozen XML and Web standards in a compliant manner. Yeah, it is really cool how Microsoft embraced the XML family of technologies.

Disclaimer: I work on the XML team at Microsoft but not directly with Microsoft Office.

Re:Exactly

[cdrudge]

Disclaimer: I work on the XML team at Microsoft but not directly with Microsoft Office.

What? You are admitting that you work for Microsoft to /.? Wow. You have more balls then I would.

Re:Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You have more balls then I would.


Three?

Re:Exactly

[Vaughn Anderson]

Disclaimer: I work on the XML team at Microsoft but not directly with Microsoft Office.

Because one developer says that MS is using XML standards correctly, does this mean that MS will actually keep it's formats open and backwards compatible?

Keep in mind it's the MS developement team that have created the file format mess in the past that is so horrid that entire countries are moving away from your closed formats. I can't even send an word 2000 doc to my father in-law who has OfficeXP with out it getting screwed up.

Even if what you say is 100% accurate, and MS delivers a compatible format that works with say, OpenOffice and Start Office, you have absoultely _NO_ gurantees that MS will not change the file format on the next upgrade and at that point turn the data to a completely proprietary form that is accessible only to the next upgrade of office.

Very few people in their right minds will trust MS anymore, and for good reasons.

Re:Exactly

[rutledjw]

I surpised believe you posted this.

The whole POINT of XML is interoperability. So can this XML be used by someone else? Is it limited to Office?

If the namespaces can't be reused by another applicaiton, then NO, it isn't "cool" what MS did. It's the classic MS crap. They may as well have forgone the entire process and left it in a binary format.

"Proprietary" XML is marketing blather and not something that adds value to the end user...

Re:Exactly

[cbiltcliffe]

You mean how Microsoft shipped XML vocabularies compliant to the W3C XML 1.0 recommendation....

And how the XML format is only supported with the most expensive version of Office. If someone's spending $800+ on an MS Office, you can be pretty sure they're not looking at alternatives, so you don't need to worry about losing them as a customer through support for XML. The Office Standard customers, who might want to spend $100 on StarOffice, rather than $300 on MS Office, you don't give XML formats to, because they might realize they only need one copy of MS Office, and the rest of their computers can use StarOffice or OpenOffice.

One more thing, since you claim to work for Microsoft:
Why is microsoft.com so damned hard to navigate, and why does the site search engine suck so much?

Re:Exactly

[dpbsmith]

Please name one vendor other than Microsoft that has announced that their product will be able to read and write Microsoft Word 11 documents.

Re:Exactly

[Vaughn Anderson]

Either way, it's a user problem.

Let me clarify for you:

I send him the file with basic formatting and it looks fine in Word 2000. (office 2000) I send him the file and he opens it, and the words are in the wrong place, the formatting is either gone or changed.

This is even based on templates from within Word itself. He even sent me the file back to make sure it wasn't corrupted, and the file was fine on word 2000.

This is _not_ a user error, it's simple lack of proper backwards compatibility.

Re:Exactly

[DickBreath]

There is no XML "standard" for Office documents.

KDE recently announced that KOffice would embrace the document formats of OpenOffice.org.

This means that a Windows user running OpenOffice.org could save a document, send it to a KOffice user on Linux, and expect it to open.

There is an effort to make a standard XML based office document format. Two office suites, so far, embrace it.

Article in InfoWorld

OASIS charter

XML for the masses

Re:Exactly

[Vaughn Anderson]

What is the point of XML in your opinion anyways ?

Who is saying MS is/will forever use only XML in their formats? I think it's naive of us to think just because they use XML that it will be compatible and remain compatible with other office like products.

This is a trust issue. The last thing I want to find out is that after 3 upgrades to office, I can no longer open any of my archived documents, or that I have to upgrade again to maintain my documents. Also, I don't want to have to upgrade Office just because my clients have a newer version so I can't read their files.

This is what concerns me is that my data is in a format that is in constant limbo without long term gurantees of the integrity of the applications (or it's formats) that create and update my data.

Considering that within 1 upgrade cycle I have lost information, what will happen within 2 or 3? Sure you can keep older copies of office, but what if you no longer can run them because the OS they are on is obsolete you upgraded that as well? You also can't have more than one version of Office on one machine at the same time, etc...

This is a real problem, not an imaginary one that is based on opinions about XML. XML is a markup language, my opinion about how to use it is actually irrelevant.

Re:Exactly

[Vaughn Anderson]

Word is not a page layout program. It's a wYsiwYg word processor.

Word _acts_ like a layout program only very poorly. Sure it is a WYSIWYG but I don't see how this definition has anything to do with it's behaviour, the point of WYSIWYG is that what I see on the screen is what I print, but it also means that what I see is what other people will see as well, and if they don't see the same thing, then something is broken, as in webpages not looking right on different browsers due to not sticking with globally recognized html standards. *hint* IE.

designing software that reformats documents when you change the printer is harder than not doing so.

Then if high quality layout programs (quark for example) or low quality programs don't do this, and it's actually more work to code, and it produces more inconsistent printing, why does MS code Word this way?

Considering that the reference implementation of RTF is Microsoft Word, I doubt it.

I don't use Word for reading or editing RTF files. Outside of that, I really don't know what you are saying...

Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML

[Overly Critical Guy]

How do "we" all know that, when it's not out in stores until Oct. 22? Are you an MSDN subscriber?

Having said that, for those curious, here is a sample of XML generated by Word, just now created by me. I'm posting this using "Code" as the format so it is formatted correctly.

Here is the original message (I gave it HTML tags so you can see the formatting I gave it in Word):

This is a <b>test</b> of <font face="verdana" size="24"><b>XML</b></font>.

Now , here is the resulting XML after saving that line:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>
<w:wordDocument xmlns:w="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/ 2003/wordml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:w10="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:sl="http://schemas.microsoft.com/schemaLibra ry/2003/core" xmlns:aml="http://schemas.microsoft.com/aml/2001/c ore" xmlns:wx="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word /2003/auxHint" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C1488 2" w:macrosPresent="no" w:embeddedObjPresent="no" w:ocxPresent="no" xml:space="preserve"><o:DocumentProperties><o:Titl e>This is a test of XML</o:Title><o:Author>User</o:Author><o:LastAutho r>User</o:LastAuthor><o:Revision>1</o:Revision><o: TotalTime>1</o:TotalTime><o:Created>2003-09-18T15: 29:00Z</o:Created><o:LastSaved>2003-09-18T15:30:00 Z</o:LastSaved><o:Pages>1</o:Pages><o:Words>3</o:W ords><o:Characters>20</o:Characters><o:Company>Whi te Goat Studios</o:Company><o:Lines>1</o:Lines><o:Paragrap hs>1</o:Paragraphs><o:CharactersWithSpaces>22</o:C haractersWithSpaces><o:Version>11.5604</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties><w:fonts><w:defaultFonts w:ascii="Times New Roman" w:fareast="Times New Roman" w:h-ansi="Times New Roman" w:cs="Times New Roman"/><w:font w:name="Verdana"><w:panose-1 w:val="020B0604030504040204"/><w:charset w:val="00"/><w:family w:val="Swiss"/><w:pitch w:val="variable"/><w:sig w:usb-0="20000287" w:usb-1="00000000" w:usb-2="00000000" w:usb-3="00000000" w:csb-0="0000019F" w:csb-1="00000000"/></w:font></w:fonts><w:styles>< w:versionOfBuiltInStylenames w:val="4"/><w:latentStyles w:defLockedState="off" w:latentStyleCount="156"/><w:style w:type="paragraph" w:default="on" w:styleId="Normal"><w:name w:val="Normal"/><w:rPr><wx:font wx:val="Times New Roman"/><w:sz w:val="24"/><w:sz-cs w:val="24"/><w:lang w:val="EN-US" w:fareast="EN-US" w:bidi="AR-SA"/></w:rPr></w:style><w:styl e w:type="character" w:default="on" w:styleId="DefaultParagraphFont"><w:name w:val="Default Paragraph Font"/><w:semiHidden/></w:style><w:sty le w:type="table" w:default="on" w:styleId="TableNormal"><w:name w:val="Normal Table"/><wx:uiName wx:val="Table Normal"/><w:semiHidden/><w:rPr><wx:fon t wx:val="Times New Roman"/></w:rPr><w:tblPr><w:tblI nd w:w="0" w:type="dxa"/><w:tblCellMar><w:top w:w="0" w:type="dxa"/><w:left w:w="108" w:type="dxa"/><w:bottom w:w="0" w:type="dxa"/><w:right w:w="108" w:type="dxa"/></w:tblCellMar></w:tblPr></w:style>< w:style w:type="list" w:default="on" w:styleId="NoList"><w:name w:val="No List"/><w:semiHidden/></w:style></w:styles><w:docP r

Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML

[SteveX]

OpenOffice actually outputs four different XML files in a zip file when you save a document.. here's what they look like for comparison (for a default document with just the word Hello in it):

content.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-content PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-content xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office" xmlns:style="http://openoffice.org/2000/style" xmlns:text="http://openoffice.org/2000/text" xmlns:table="http://openoffice.org/2000/table" xmlns:draw="http://openoffice.org/2000/drawing" xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:number="http://openoffice.org/2000/datastyle " xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:chart="http://openoffice.org/2000/chart" xmlns:dr3d="http://openoffice.org/2000/dr3d" xmlns:math="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:form="http://openoffice.org/2000/form" xmlns:script="http://openoffice.org/2000/script" office:class="text" office:version="1.0"><office:script/><office:font- decls><style:font-decl style:name="Tahoma1" fo:font-family="Tahoma"/><style:font-decl style:name="Arial Unicode MS" fo:font-family="&apos;Arial Unicode MS&apos;" style:font-pitch="variable"/><style:font-dec l style:name="Tahoma" fo:font-family="Tahoma" style:font-pitch="variable"/><style:font-dec l style:name="Times New Roman" fo:font-family="&apos;Times New Roman&apos;" style:font-family-generic="roman" style:font-pitch="variable"/></office:font-decls>< office:automatic-styles/><office:body><text:sequen ce-decls><text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Illustration"/><text:sequence-dec l text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Table"/><text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Text"/><text:sequence-decl text:display-outline-level="0" text:name="Drawing"/></text:sequence-decls><text:p text:style-name="Standard">Hello.</text:p></office :body></office:document-content>

meta.xml:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-meta PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-meta xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:meta="http://openoffice.org/2000/meta" office:version="1.0"><office:meta><meta:generator> OpenOffice.org 1.1.0 (Win32)</meta:generator><!--645m18(Build:8687)-->< meta:creation-date>2003-09-18T11:55:07</meta:creat ion-date><dc:date>2003-09-18T11:56:33</dc:date><dc :language>en-US</dc:language><meta:editing-cycles> 3</meta:editing-cycles><meta:editing-duration>PT18 S</meta:editing-duration><meta:user-defin ed meta:name="Info 1"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 2"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 3"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 4"/><meta:document-statistic meta:table-count="0" meta:image-count="0" meta:object-count="0" meta:page-count="1" meta:paragraph-count="1" meta:word-count="1" meta:character-count="6"/></office:meta></office:d ocument-meta>

settings.xml I can't include because it has a UUEncoded section that Slashdot refuses..

styles.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE office:document-styles PUBLIC "-//OpenOffice.org//DTD OfficeDocument 1.0//EN" "office.dtd"><office:document-styles xmlns:office="http://openoffice.org/2000/office" xmlns:style="http://openoffi

Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML

[DickBreath]

At least OOo's XML is compressed in a zip file. Everything I've seen is that good sized documents are decently small in OOo. Compare the same document content in a Word file to an OOo file.

I say this because I fear some may get the impression that OOo's document format is inefficient based on the parent post.

Re:Here is a sample of Word 2003 XML

[DickBreath]

How much effort is it to zip Word's XML output up?

If XML is your primary document format, as it is for OOo, then it is important to use Zip. There is another important motivation for OOo to use Zip. Because Zip is a container format, not just a compression format. Multiple XML files. plus bitmaps, and other objects are included within an OOo document.

Suppose you have a Word doc with lots of bitmaps. If you save this as XML, then those objects must either be (1) Omitted, or (2) converted into a textual form and put into the XML. Contrast with the efficiency of OOo's format. A bitmap or OLE object would just be added to the zip file in its native form. Plus the OOo zip file can contain multiple XML files, such as the Content.xml and a separate style sheet xml, for instance.

To get to a single item within a Word XML, I would have to parse all of the XML, skipping large blocks of textual binary data. But in OOo's zip file, I have direct lookup access to obtain, say, a bitmap object that I need right now.

Zip is not used so much for compression as it is as a container. In fact, the OOo zip file could hypothetically not use any compression, yet be fully forward and backward compatible with all implementations of OOo, or even KOffice. Saving a document uncompressed results in faster performance, but it is still a zip of numerous files, including xml files.

So a future OOo could do a "quick save" in a fully compliant way, but with no compression on some/all of the zip items.


Also, don't forget that most people if saving as XML won't want to send around a zip file in email as their primary use of such a file format. They're more likely to do something else with the XML data instead. Which means that with OO, you have to unzip it to use it.

Again, in OOo, the zipped-xml is the primary document format. The fact that standard tools can process it (zip and xml) is just a bonus. OOo doesn't need a separate format (like Word's XML format) to turn documents into a "readable" form.

OOo's native doc format is already very readable and accessible. Just take a Writer doc (.sxw) rename it to (.zip), unzip it, and you've got a folder of xml files and possibly other files.

Microsoft is a poor steward...

[Lodragandraoidh]

I know this redundant. But, I have to say it:

Microsoft has said this before, and the results have always been bad for developers and consumers (for example the Java and XML debacle).

I don't mind Microsoft using existing standards; I do violently oppose them guiding the course of standards, because they have been shown to be a bad steward for any public standard they get their hands on.

I would be so bold as to argue that it is not out of hubris that they are as they are, as much as from greed.

Here's why...

[sterno]

The assumption is based on the fact that Microsoft's business has been built on leveraging their advantages in one realm to take over another. There are a number of MS products that would never be used by anybody if it wasn't for the fact that they come bundled with other products that are good.

My sense is that Microsoft will play as though they are open to working with these third parties because they really have no choice. Under the covers they will do what they can to subvert these other systems.

For the record, I'm sure IBM or Sun would do the same thing if they had the power to do so.

I thought it was...

[TALlama]

I fear the geeks, even when they bring GIFs.

Has anyone here read...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Breaking Windows" by David Bank?

The central premise in this book is Bill Gates' philosophy of product development. Although the author presents it as a pragmatic, thought-out business plan that evolved from Bill Gates' examination of the market, to me it always came across as a response to basic insecurities that exposed more of Bill's personality flaws than any understanding of the market.

It goes like this: it doesn't matter how good the product is; it doesn't matter how well a product works; customers are fickle and will switch software at the drop of a hat. Therefore, the only way to keep customers is to 'lock them in', to leverage Office to increase Windows share and Windows to increase Office share by continually tying them together and forcing one to require the other. I am paraphrasing and working from memory, read the book.

My points are:
1. the basic business philosophy of Microsoft is so deeply rooted in the insecurities of it's founder and the founder is still in control
2. the whole idea of "open" standards is completely contrary to the concepts of "lock-in" that has worked so well for Microsoft up to this point

that this DOES sound like something from an alternate universe as one poster here has noted and that this has about as much chance of being even partially true as a snowball's chance in hell.

"We're being as inclusive as we can.."

[LinuxParanoid]

"We're being as inclusive as we can", Gates said...

I.e. inclusive enough to give away 15% of the market to rivals and keep antitrust guys off our backs, but not inclusive enough to risk losing customers to any web services running on alternative OSes?

--LinuxParanoid, who doesn't yet believe Gates's philanthroipc altruism extends to other software companies

P.S. Note Gates's observation that "Standards are always a give-to-get bargain" and ask yourself "what does Gates think he is getting?" There are a variety of possible answers.

Microsoft just doesn't get it

[penguin7of9]

Your "stylesheets to convert WordML to HTML" aren't particularly persuasive when they are distributed in .EXE format with no license information on the web page and with requirements of "Supported Operating Systems: Windows XP".

If you want to convince people that Microsoft is becoming more open, you have a lot of work ahead of you learning how to distribute standards, sample implementations, and other documentation:

• Put license information on the web page prominently. People should know what the license is before they download.
  
• Distribute your content in a neutral, non-executable format. ZIP is OK. Gzipped tar is OK.
  
• Pick a license for things like your style sheets and schemas so that people can actually use them to build interoperable products freely.
  

Until you start distributing stuff so that people can actually download and use it without Microsoft products and without signing their life away, all that talk of embracing open standards is just meaningless fluff.

Re:Microsoft just doesn't get it

[DickBreath]

He makes some very valid points. Can you?

I'll make one that is very valid.

Because of Microsoft's past behavior, people are naturally suspicious of any apparent attempts at good behavior. Especially if you liked Microsoft in the 70's, and then watched the development of the industry over the last 20+ years. It is just plain difficult to trust Microsoft. Too many times this trust has been betrayed. In fact, I would suggest that anyone who does trust may be a fool, and this conclusion would be supported by Microsoft's past action. Every time Microsoft tries to be "open" is always in some non-open way. The only time I have seen Microsoft embrace true interoperability with anything has been whenever they first get into something and are the minority player.

While the pointers to the Microsoft XML are very informative, the response to it does make valid points.

• Why is supposedly "interoperable" stuff downloadable as an EXE?
• Why use non-open formats?
• Why not have the license clearly visible before you download (or before you purchase for that matter)?

I hate to break it to you, but these ARE valid points.

These points criticize an apparent continuing behavior of trying to seem open, while not actually being open.

Re:OK I'll bite...

[__aagmrb7289]

Wow, got a problem with this business practice, huh? Well, can you name any major software company that has "embraced" standards, without extending them? Not Sun. Not Netscape. Not IBM. Maybe some Linux company?

I'm not defending the practice, just pointing out that it's considered legitimate by the software community at large, and used by some of the largest names in the industry. And that includes, but doesn't consist only of, Microsoft.

Danger - MS is trying to set the standards

[bizcoach]

In the past, the standards for the internet were decided through the community-based process of the Internet Engineering Task Force. This process is based on "rough consensus" and there is no way that a few influential companies could pervert this process in order to use it to establish standards that they can afterwards use to effectively kill their competitors.

Standards from Microsoft are dangerous, even when royalty-free licensing is offered so that they can be implemented in Free Software.

Consider for example the ECMA standards 334 and 335 for the core parts of .NET - while Microsoft has promised royalty-free licensing for any and all patents that may be neccessary for implementing that standard, they are at the same time embracing and extending their own standard, and they have filed at least one patent application that seems to be designed to give them a monopoly on their extensions to the standard.

In some situations it may work to simply refuse to go along with the standards attempts from MS. Unfortunately, MS has so much leverage that this won't always work. For example, with .NET just ignoring it IMO won't work, that's why we're working on creating a competing "standard set of libraries" for the stuff which goes beyond the stuff that is safe from patent-based attacks (the safe parts are what is specified in the ECMA specs, for which MS has promised royalty-free licensing, plus everything which is thin wrappers around stuff that is simply too old to be affected by .NET patents, such as for example System.Windows.Forms). The strategy of the DotGNU project is to re-use a good number of existing Free Software libs (written in C) and compile them for .NET - again since those libs are old, they're safe from being affected by any .NET patents.

Greetings,
Norbert.

Gates actually is really smart

[KurdtX]

(Before you mod me down, at least read half the comment)

Gates has realized that Microsoft cannot hold the crown of the software world forever. It's great at competing against companies that it can buy out or undercut, but it can't do either of those to Linux. IBM lost their crown when it failed to realize the PC, and the software running on it, were the new champs of the computing business. Ironically, I think this is the first step in Microsoft converting from a software company to a services company. It's pretty hard to make money on software if some geeks are giving it away for free.

The decade of windows is about to close, it became the best OS for the average (non-programmer) user when Win 95 was released, and before that Macintosh had their decade. Linux's decade hasn't started yet, but Windows only has a few years left, and Bill realizes that. If you look at the way the economy is turning, you can see that while the pure programming jobs may go overseas, services can't. Many companies are already using the "give the software away, charge for services" model of doing business (actually, the company I work for is selling the software, services, and a required maintainance contract - I'm feeling pretty safe), and are surviving just fine.

Not that Microsoft hasn't turned every one of these initiatives in the past into either an "embrace-and-extend" or "embrace-and-block" (by being one of the founders and then never giving final approval to the standard) strategy. Maybe they'll go through with this one this time, but expect to see Microsoft make an about-face on software in the next ten years like they did with their position on the internet back in '97. It's just a matter of time.

dotGNU - what's the point?

[alext]

The strategy of the DotGNU project is to re-use a good number of existing Free Software libs (written in C) and compile them for .NET - again since those libs are old, they're safe from being affected by any .NET patents.

Even assuming this makes sense technically (see below), surely if you no longer care about portability between Dotnet and dotGNU, you've just lost the main justification for the dotGNU project?

If I have developed a Dotnet app, but I can't compile it on dotGNU because it calls Windows Forms, or ASP.NET or ADO.NET... why on earth should I care that, if I could compile it, the generated bytecodes would be the same instruction set as found on Windows? By definition, there cannot be any value for me to have portability at the bytecode level if it is missing at the application level. And, if I do go as far as changing every non-core API call in my app, I'm hardly going to care much if the bytecode is different - I have to maintain and generate two versions anyway.

Without portability, it seems positively perverse to seek to extend the influence of Microsoft technologies on Linux when there are already very well established equivalents (Java, Python, Parrot). Java-on-Linux investments alone must total something in the order of billions of dollars per year, judging by the number of large organizations doing rollouts of this type - I'd guess that currently Java is the single biggest factor pushing Linux into commercial organizations today.

So precisely what value is dotGNU bringing to the table?

Regarding the incorporation of old C libraries into DotGNU, it seems rather optimistic to assume they can just be wrapped or turned into managed code (ask MS about the effort invested in doing that for their code). Do these libs happen to support Dotnet style internationalization, multithreading, access control...? If not, you've got a huge chunk of work to do - and all to get you roughly where Python is already!

Here's a great idea for a web service!

[DickBreath]

Here is a great idea for a web service!

Bill should just love it because it is based on 100% Microsoft technologies.

I hope some kind soul will do this.

Set up a Windows 2003 server running ASP.NET and also a copy of the new high end MS Office that writes XML documents. Write a web service (i.e. a front end to a remote function call) that...

• accepts as a parameter, a Word document
• opens it using the server's copy of new Office
• scripts the server to save the document in MS-XML format
• returns the XML as the remote function call result

Now other office suites, such as OpenOffice.org, or any software package could simply make such a function call to such a server to convert documents into MS-XML as a prelude to further processing the MS-XML into OpenOffice.org-XML.

Heck Sun could host such a service.

Standard macros could be included in OOo which convert Word documents, via. this network based service, into OOo documents.

standards are fine if you aren't the market leader

[GunFodder]

Microsoft has never had a problem with open standards in markets that they don't control. Weren't they lobbying for an IM open standard a while ago? At the time AOL had the lion's share of the market. At this time no one controls the Web Services market, if there even is one.

Right now Web Services is all about standards, since there isn't much in the way of implementations yet. MSFT and IBM seem to be at odds with the other major players; seems like every major new standard is being duplicated. Can't we all just get along?

Ok, I'll bite...

[InfoVore]

It was a little more complicated than you suggested, but just as satisfying:

17:1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of Microsoft that sitteth upon many waters:

17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, MICROSOFT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where Microsoft sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

17:16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate Microsoft, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

17:17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto Microsoft, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

17:18 And the woman which thou sawest is Windows, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Microsoft is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful user.

18:3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her applications, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with Windows, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of Office for Windows.

18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of Windows, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her Viruses.

18:5 For Window's sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

18:6 Reward Windows even as she rewarded you, and double unto Windows double according to her works: in the cup which Windows hath filled fill to her double.

18:7 How much Windows hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart A FATAL ERROR HAS OCCURED AT 002B:000069F8, PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT.

18:8 Therefore shall her Viruses come in one day, death, and mourning, and BSODs; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth Windows.

18:9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with Windows, shall bewail her, and lament for Office, when they shall see the smoke of Windows burning,

18:10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas Redmond, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

18:11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over Microsoft; for no man buyeth their licenses any more:

18:15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by Windows, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing

18:16 And saying, Alas, alas Redmond, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and Themes!

18:18 And cried when they saw the smoke of Microsoft burning, saying, What city is like unto Redmond!

18:19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas Redmond, wherein were made rich all that had Stock Options by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

18:20 Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on Windows.

18:21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great Click-through License, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Redmond be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.

18:22 And the voice of coders, and testers, and of tech support, and salesmen, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no software engineer, of whatsoever language he code, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of programming shall be heard no more at all in thee;

18:24 And in Windows was found the blood of entrepreneurs,

Re:Damned if you do, damned if ou don't

[yerricde]

Unless everyone in the world has the same printer I can't see how both goals are not contradictory.

PDF seems to have no trouble printing identically on all black-and-white printers. If a page layout program must base its formatting decisions on the characteristics of the printer attached to the last computer that edited the file, why not save those characteristics in the document?

Easy Reason: Apache

[Wolfier]

It is what MS always does.

It promotes interoperability when its platforms are not the dominant players in a field.

Remember how its efforts to get AIM opened? Now it's not asking it anymore since MSN is competitive enough.

Now it's apparent - how much market share does Apache have now? How about mod_php? How about IIS? ASP? Is there any wonder MS is seeking interoperability?