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Microsoft Lashes out at Massachusetts IT Decision
scoop writes "Infoweek is reporting that the plan to eliminate the use of Office by the Massachusetts state government (previously covered on Slashdot) has not gone over well with Microsoft. Microsoft's Yates said the company agrees with the adoption of XML but does not agree that the solution to "public records management is to force a single, less functional document format on all state agencies." Microsoft also states they will not support the OpenDocument format. Looks to me Microsoft is scared their biggest cash cow is in danger from a free alternative. Soon I'm sure we'll see a Microsoft funded comparison between Office and OpenOffice."
And this customer chooses OpenDocument, an XML schema. So, it would appear that either MS Office or Microsoft is not flexible enough to actually "support any XML schemas that a customer chooses". Microsoft spokesman lying through his teeth, sun rises, sun sets, film at eleven.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Open Office (comparatively) sucks. Yes, MS Word eats large documents, but what good is a solid office suite when the interface makes you go through hoops to get what you want?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From the article:
These articles are delicious with irony. I sometimes find it difficult to believe these are real! Do any of the Microsoft PR people ever sit down and read statements they've made?
Anyway, so now Microsoft thinks it knows best what constitutes (irony) the best solution for a government. Certainly Microsoft knows better than any company about ..., force a single, less functional document format... .
Of course the obvious solution (and I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't figured this out, though we may see this in the next article) is for Microsoft to purchase Massechussets and force their document format by fiat. With that approach they get the convenient side effect of being able to foist the format on the state's populus by law.
I think they deliberately misunderstand the issue. The issue here is not functionality. Yes opendoc may actually be less functional than the word-format but guess what Microsoft? I haven't used any of this additional functionality since 1997 and neither has the US government.
The battle for features is over and what's replaced it is a lot more important. What we have today is a battle of ideology. Don't you think there's something a little perverse in a government investing huge amounts of tax payers money in creating all this intellectual property but having made this tremendous investment in time and resources they have to pay a private corporation to get the tools to access that investment?
To be fair, it's not just Microsoft who are perverse like this. Sage Line 50 is a great example of corporate greed. You pay £800 for the piece of software but lord if you want to insert or update information in a third-party program you need to pay around £1500 a year for the developer license. It was this that made me wake up to the reality of the situation: Our company is paying nearly a hundred thousand pounds a year in accountants who enter data in to your software package yet we have to pay you AGAIN to update that data? It's us that paid money to put the data in there in the first place, why should we have to pay you again just to use it from a homegrown program?
It's this greed that the US government is rejecting. In the early days everbody wanted software to help deliver the tremendous savings that computers can bring to a business. They would be a license from whatever vendor they would sacrifice much to get it. Now companies are starting to expect software to deliver a return on investment and they're not willing to tie themselves in to one company. Having many suppliers after your business drives down prices. This is as true with IT as it is with any other sector. The way to ensure you can get many suppliers knocking for your business is to make sure it's easy to switch. Open Office might be a pain at first but the opendoc standard will make it easier to switch. It's a good move in the long run.
Microsoft, Sage or any other company do not have the automatic right to make a profit. The lesson to Microsoft is simple: you were beaten here not because your product was inferior but because you failed to allow people to compete with you effectively. The role of a government in a capitalist society is to promote competition not subtract from it. In this case Massachusetts has done everyone a favour by telling Microsoft that it can cram its vendor-lockin into a bloody big pipe and smoke it.
Simon.
Microsoft also states they will not support the OpenDocument format.
Well, I don't understand why they don't want to support it. The Office 2003 XML format is also open (perhaps a bit less "open", but open anyway), OpenDocument is open, what is the point of supporting a open format and not supporting another?
I mean, why not support OpenDocument and sell office to work with it? Massachusetts seems to be searching a good document format, they don't seem to say clearly "we want openoffice", they could sell more office copies if they supported the Opendocument format
Sounds like the making of a third rate suite...
So Microsoft's official position is that a format for public documents that is readable for everyone without exceptions is a bad thing?
Nice to see that they believe in one of the fundamentals of democracy: open access to government information for all citizens.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
They might do that eventually, but right now they will just give the software away to the state for free.....IT managers like free, and it avoids TCO arguments.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Last time I checked, it wasn't possible to embed "voice-over-IP" in M$ documents either..
Also, What do they mean with this "less functional" argument? Last time I checked I could write, draw, do calculations and present with OpenOffice. And I can print all those things too. Witch functionality they're missing? At work, at Rio de Janeiro City public health department, our users don't miss anything... mostly because they were unaware of those "extra functionalities" bundled with MSOffice. Pehaps they're talking about the ability to hold a trojan playload? OpenOffice as far as I know don't support a single macro virus... Ha!
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
What is meant by that anyway?
/. when Bill Gates or another MS friend drops by again.
The goal of a document is to document. Since about version 2 of every document application, it has been able to do that (OpenOffice is not at version 2, but at version 8 if you count StarOffice releases). So if you take a program from the seventies (nice frontend: textmode!) it will also do the trick.
Now looking at modern document formatting applications like MS Word, OpenOffice, Word Perfect and many great others, what does MS Word offer which is so much more functional in document format, so not in general functionality, but just document format?
This is one for Ask
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Open standards increase competition and MS doesn't want competition. They want domination as do most businesses with a majority market share.
Consumers are starting to realize open standards give them more options and that is a GOOD thing. Businesses are starting to realize the risk (and long term cost) of putting all of their data in a proprietary format. Proprietary formats often make it harder to
* Interoperate with other systems
* Switch to a competitor
If a proprietary format offers NEEDED functionality not offered by an open standard then I say maybe replicate the data for that use.
It is time for gov't agencies to require open standards for data.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
As long as they refuse to support other formats than their own proprietary formats, MS will be easily identified as the bad guy. Not only geeks realise and understand this.
;)
MS will keep fighting, claiming that much of Office's functionality is closely related to their format (which is both true and false), and saying that an open format delivers less value to customers. However, they always risk making people understand they dont need (the advance functions of) office at all, because it is far too complicated.
Naturally, word processors and spreadsheets are 20-year-old inventions - why should a single company be able to keep making huge money from this year after year, with no useful innovation? They simply shouldnt! And they wont. But as long as people believe an office suite should cost $500+ MS will be able to charge that amount. Isnt much they can do when people stop believing that though
Supporting other formats will just increase the speed that people replace MSOffice (because it makes it so much easier to replace it then). So, MS will never support open formats, and will always be the bad guy - which they deserve!
Further, he added, "this proposal acknowledges that Open Document does not address pictures, audio, video, charts, maps, voice, voice-over-IP, and other kinds of data our customers are increasingly putting in documents and archiving."
I can't believe that Open Document does not address pictures, but what I find even harder to believe is that anyone would want to put VOIP in a document.
-- Cheers!
I wouldnt say we have a battle of ideology. However, software industry is so old now, that the rest of the industry (and society) expects it to be mature and efficient (like everything else). Proprietary and expensive formats are simply not mature and responsible.
Those using MS Office start questioning: what do we get for our dollars. The value is not there, and closed proprietary formats are good for no one but MS. So people will switch, because they can, and it is the only responsible thing they can do.
"Microsoft's Internet Explorer complies with HTTP standards so backing OpenDoc would not be a hardship for Microsoft"
Sigh, if only he knew ;). Hello? W3C?
Stuck down a hole! In the middle of the night! With an owl!
I think this is a very good example for what happens if a company gets to big.
Imagine a small software company would do the same: "What, you want us to support OpenDocument? No, I think that's a very bad idea. We won't do that."
What would be the customers reply: "Thank you, Sirs. We think that we try it with one of your competitors."
How can it be that a software company tries to totally ignore a customers wishes? Hey, guys at MS: The customer is the one who pays. You're the one that wants money from customers. Either listen to what your customers want or go to hell!!!
Unbelievable! Sheesh!
D.
Rumor has it that MA has been threatened with a chair...
Amazing the world didn't self destruct when it only had typewriters.
But seriously, we are seeing what was predicted with Netscape in the late 90-ties slowly becoming real. When Netscape decided to open their source code many believed (including me) that the open bazaar of OS developers would wipe out then clunky and not to be taken seriously IE. It turned out we were wrong, but only about the timing. Look at the situation now - it's IE which has to catch up.
Back 6 years ago, when I tried Star Office for the first time it clearly wasn't a match for MS Office '97. It simply wasn't good. Now I'm using Open Office 2 beta and I must say it is closing very fast on Microsoft. It's not as polished and not as smooth to use, especially if you are accustomed to MS Office's way of doing things but it improved immensely since Open Office 1 - and that was pretty usable already. I think that now for most of your average office or home word processing or calculations etc. you just don't need MS Office anymore.
And, furthermore, we are dealing here with the same phenomenon that many other industries went through. Word processing and all the other components of office software are becoming common place, just like plumbing, transistor radios or cars. It's not high tech anymore, it's not a big deal, anyone can do it. It's commonplace. And for that you just don't pay premium prices, especially in the field that doesn't deal with material goods.
So the problem Microsoft has with Open Office is twofold. On one hand it's the normal evolution of the technology's acceptance in the society that makes them less and less indispensable. On the other it's the same problem they had with Mozilla - it's not a company, so they can't hurt them by throwing piles of money on the problem. Worse, it's not animated by greed. And, let's be frank, MS guys don't think beyond money - software is their tool for making money, not a way of making a difference. That is a cultural barrier that makes it hard for them to understand those who have different motivation.
The switch to open data formats is a great idea and I hope it spreads. To enforce the format, there should be a program that reads a file and strictly determines if it meets the standard with no extras. This would keep the file pure and not just compatible with the standard.
However, don't be surprised if Massachusetts backpedals on their decision after Microsoft's promises free copies of XP for the schools, or a new computer lab for "underprivileged" children. Microsoft is a pro at getting their way by any means possible. Massachusetts pols will have to get up pretty early in the morning not to be out slicked by Microsoft's professional grifters and con-artists.
Massachusetts citizens need to let their elected officials know that this decision has popular grassroots support. By the way, RMS is a citizen of Massachusetts, isn't he?
Based upon ballmer's reaction to goggle hiring that staff member, if I were the governor of Massachusetts I would be seriously considering upgrading my security right about now (all that money could pay for a whole army of hitmen) and this has to be far worse than that. I wonder if we will get a story tommorow about the redecorating of ballmer's office.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Because everybody knows that Microsoft does not want to force a single, closed document format on all state agencies.
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
However OpenOffice is free, supports documented standards, has good
Additionally Microsoft are running out of ways to improve their product that matter to most users. Recent efforts seem to about throwing in enterprise / collaborative features that require you buy other MS products to make them work. How many people are going to bother with that?
All the OpenOffice people can do is keep plugging away at the code, make it more usable and fix some of the functionality holes (e.g outline mode in word processor). It would also be nice to see OO load faster and dump either Python or Java. It's just plain strange to drag in two runtimes when one would do.
is supporting OpenDocument, Sun, IBM, Corel, KOffice, Adobe, pretty much every company which has something remotely office like, only Microsoft does not do it. Given that the US and EU government also had their hands in the specification of this format, you can expect more things like that to happen. Microsoft finally either has to adopt open standards (which is the usual situation outside of the software world, with government contracts, but Microsoft does not see that) or is shot out. I expect similar things to happen from the EU soon...
I understand why it isn't in their interest to provide a good working integration to the OpenDocument format. That would kill them off and take a huge integration burden of an already free competitor.
No, Microsofts way is to embrace and extend and my bet is that they will find some way of doing that. Maybe they will claim that certain MS Word features is impossible to port to OpenDoc and they will add some extra tags for that or they will mangle the format so much it will hardly be recongnizable as the standard or something else.
I think a bad integration to OpenDoc might be more in their interest than none. That allows them to say: ok, we did the integration but the format is inferior and you will be better off using ours.
Microsoft's plan to meet the huge demand for VoIP embedded in documents. OpenDocument's lack of this feature is a complete deal-breaker for most users.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Whilst openness is always good, the release notes for koffice 1.4 seemed to say "this release supports opendoc as best as we can, but much of the specification is unclear, we'll simply have to wait and see what OOo 2.0 does before we can say we have full support". Meanwhile abiword decided not to implement it, IIRC citing similar concerns I wonder just how well-specified this "open format" really is, and how easy it actually is to add support to applications other than OOo.
I am trolling
just can't properly address it because it means a serious change to their business model.
Right now they are the leader in both marketshare and dollars. They can't even sell Office at a lower price because the dollars fund their ongoing efforts to enter other markets and integrate the products in them with their existing stack.
I know they have lots of money in the bank, but that's not the point. Once cashflow from new office and windows sales fails to balance the R & D efforts, shareholders will notice and their value will drop.
Caught between a rock and hard place really.
And that's the bad part about being the 800 pound gorilla. You get awful hungry all of the time.
If they were to scale back and focus on their core markets, they would be better able to match their product pricing to the actual product value. However, their growth models also depend on these other markets and R & D efforts too. Dropping those would have the same effect on stock value.
Basically, they must justify their existance every day, or take a very big fall. Once that actually happens, the gloves will come off and everybody left will compete on a more level playing field.
Of course, that's just as good as being in hell where Microsoft is concerned. I'm not sure they even know how to act in such a role.
Blogging because I can...
Yeah they will get a million monkeys typing away on word and a million monkeys typing away on open office and the monkey that actually figures out that it is doing something pointless will be the one who decides which word processor is best. Then microsoft will spank that monkey... forgive me Im tired and I have to go to bed now.
Once again this reveals that the real source of Microsoft's wealth and power is actually Office and not Windows. When organizations start to get away from Office, they soon discover that they can escape Windows too. If the state of MA is serious and not just using the threat of OpenDocument to get cheaper licenses for MS Office, then it won't be long before they discover that they can save some more money by moving to Linux rather than having to upgrade thousands of computers to run Windows Vista once MS drops support for earlier versions of Windows.
As we move into a post PC era, large accounts like government organizations will become even more important to Microsoft as the consumer business begins to shrink. So they're going to fight very hard to keep Office in play. So expect a really sweet licensing deal for MA. The funny thing is that MS Office is still a strong enough brand that even if they supported OpenDocument, it probably wouldn't cost them a lot of Office sales and it would avoid the true losses that a hardline stand seems guaranteed to result in. Maybe Gates will realize this and step in...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
What I think to be more important than all this controversy about software usage is how all this information is going to be used.
When anyone can easily get detailed information on anyone else, where does this put us regarding privacy? Isn't that part of the promise of the US constitution?
I guess we threw all that out with widespread adoption of the internet.
Further, he added, "this proposal acknowledges that Open Document does not address pictures, audio, video, charts, maps, voice, voice-over-IP, and other kinds of data our customers are increasingly putting in documents and archiving."
.doc, e-mail it, and wait for the answer in the same format?
What the fuck was this guy thinking?, how could you embedd VoIP on a document?, it doesn't make any sense.
Let me guess, you record your question in mp3, you put it inside a
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Actually, Halliburton doesn't need to demand anything -- their friends in the administration take care of that for them. They've already been given a contract for the reconstruction of some Navy facilities, as reported in the Houston Chronicle :
You'll note that this was reported on September 1. People were still suffering without food and water; but hey, first things first.Massachusetts's decision is based on idealogical choice and less about technical one. It makes perfect sense for citizen of the state to be able to view government documents without having to require an expensive software purchase. Even if OpenDocument format was inferior to Word's format technically, it still makes sense for them to go with OpenDocument due to idealogical reasons. I just think it's so obvious that government should strieve to be platform agnostic as much as possible. Also it isn't fair for a government which runs off of tax payer's money to endorse one particular proprietary software over another. Imagine if government adopted WordPerfect document format as the standard. Microsoft would have gone nuts over that. I do believe that this is a start of something bigger over time. The idea that government should use open standards is as obvious as reason for the separation for church and state.
I do think it's Microsoft's refusal to support OpenDocument is just making their problems even bigger. Let say f the state government sends some document to school system. Now receiver has to install OpenOffice to open that document instead of just using Word. Having said that I have a feeling Microsoft isn't going to just go away without a whimper. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft sues the state over something like this in attempt to intimidate or delay the migration. Perhaps Microsoft may threatens to audit every government desktop computers for license violation. They already pulled this sort of stunt with Oregon public education and I don't see this sort of tatics as being outside of their usual playbook.
"Let's not leap to conclusions," Kriss said, adding that Microsoft's Internet Explorer complies with HTTP standards so backing OpenDoc would not be a hardship for Microsoft.
He he he ha ha ha HA HA HA!!!
The corporate version of a temper tantrum. We're going to take our XML schema and go home!
MSFT employees are, by and large, smart and intelligent. Collectively all that goes out the window. Makes me wonder if Ballmer is taking too much of a hand in day to day operations. That kind of stupidity can only come from the top.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I love the statement from microsoft that it agrees that xml is a great idea but that the think the current standards are low and that they do not want to be forced into using them.
I know nobody here needs to be told this, but that is bullshit.
If the xml based standards are too low, M$ with its gazillions of cash reserves could come up with a superior xml office document format, release it under a completely open format, and then use their monopoly, um market share to force it into use.
Well XML is one thing, but PDF (which is the other half of the policy) is a fairly inflexable format for most people. Opening a pre-existing pdf document, edititing, and saving it is not a common-place operation for most office suites. Try googling "free pdf editor" or "gpl pdf editor". You will get links to a bunch trial pdf *writers* and a few evaluation versions of editors. I don't know of a completely free (as in not an evaluation version) PDF *editor*
My other bitch about pdf is that some morons don't know the difference between a scanned (i.e. picture of text without ocr) document that has been saved as pdf and a actual text document that has been written to pdf. Ofcourse, with the actual text, you can atleast highlight, copy, and paste into a new document. No such luck with the picture of text.
Ever heard of software patents?
They're not being forced, it's a specific decision. Public access takes presedence over functionality, especially when the basic functionality the libre document formats provides is already considered adequate enough to have made that choice in the first place.
If, on the other hand, they would have settled on a document format that forces the user into a specific application, and in some cases having no application available on the platform (or just simply not available because of the expense), that would have been a bigger limitation than whether or not they could perform function X.
What is worse, not being able to use clippy, or not being able to even read the document?
Is this like the Puffy Daddy / P.Diddy thing?
That is NOT Word. That is a user inserting an image as a link on a drive you do not
That said - Word does accumulate large amounts of cruft. We regularly pass docs aorund for review, and because the department is using a multitude of language settings, I invariably have my nice English text come back thinking it is Brazilian Portuguese or French.
It also had a document shredder called the "Master Document" feature. Something writers tell each other to never use.
Is anyone working on an open source OpenDocument import/export filter for Microsoft Office? Just like Firefox for Windows (as a transition vehicle from Internet Explorer), that'd help start to wean people away from Microsoft Office.
But wasn't it MS who said hardware would be free?
Microsoft's criticism of the decision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts deserves scrutiny.
They contend that a bad solution for
And they are correct, in a way.
The single document format is actually a good thing because the benefits of standardization in terms of communication can outweigh many concerns about the technical functionality of a format.
But it's the "functional" part that is interesting. There are different definitions of "functional document format" that may be operating:
The discussion may be taking place on the highly principled ground of the first two meanings, but the latter two meanings are where money is at stake and, therefore, represent a likelihood.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Did the state of Mass. not consider the free Office Viewers?
No encryption can withstand the power of the Lucky Guess.
Excuse me for using the f-word in my title, but since I got you attention, I'ld like to try and make a point.
A lot of institutions worldwide have tried to force MS into a less monopolistic role. People have tried to get refunds for unused copies of Windows which they had forcedly bought. People have tried taking MS to court. The EU has tried to make MS behave nicely by forcing them to make a Mediaplayer-free version of Windows and there are several other examples, but they all failed to catch the main issue.
Microsoft's monopoly is not built on forcefully sold, pre-installed copies of Windows, nor on some Mediaplayer application, nor on Internet Explorer or even Windows.
Microsoft's monopoly leans on Office, and almost exclusively that. The Office file formats are secret. MS has - in a very clever way, namely by letting people pirate Office in the beginning without shouting bloody murder all too hard - made half the world use Office, on way or another. And now loads and loads of documents are in the MS Office format, people can't switch.
By forcing MS to adopt the OpenDocument format (MS _is_ a member of oasis, by the way) Microsoft monopoly is broken. Boom. With one computer batch-converting old MS Office documents to the OpenDocument format and all other computers running {$anyOS} with {$anyOfficeSuite} you can both choose your own software, save money and be free. Or not, your choice.
If the politicians want to break the MS monopoly, let them break it where it counts: in the MS Office document format area. That's where it matters, hardly anywhere else.
So, this leads me to draw 2 conclusions:
1) Politicians do NOT want to break the monopoly, sadly and ununderstandable. 2) Bill will have nightmares for the rest of his life if the Mass. idea catches on in the rest of the US and the world. I hope it will, though - in the light of the vast marketing budget of MS - I doubt it...
+5 insightful...
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
One interesting thing about this. Is if there was a comparison between microsoft office and other free alternatives the free alternatives will generally show up as having fewer features than the microsoft products tested. However any real comparison should really see how many of those features are actually used by the vast majority of people on any occasion. Taking that information on board will probably show that many of the office suites are more than just word processors spread sheats etc etc..
XML, although it can be read can be closed. I haven't seen the 2003 format, but ther are all sorts of things one can do to say we are using XML yet close it up real good so other programs can't use it.
With the state moving to open formats, this will be good as I and many others will be able to use the documents. Because I refuse to pay $700++ for office and use Open Office as the alternative. For me it works great. The best part is I can use in in Linux and in Windows. (I am still forced to use Windows at work).
If you think software has a very low barrier to entry, feel free to fund the development of a competitor to MS Office.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Contrast this to Microsoft's poorly-documented new XML format, which is mired in the deep and dangerous swamps of backward compatibility with everything from OLE onwards.
Which would you trust?
If I were Microsoft I'd simply include an open format buried deep within Office. Buried so deep that even the biggest geek couldn't find it. But it'd be there so when an entity such as Massachusetts complained about the lack of open formats in Office, sales people could point it out and say, "If you really want to use an open format, we're completely behind you. In fact, Office includes an open format. Sign this non-disclosure agreement and we'll tell you how to turn it on." (Heck, maybe you'd have to get some code from Microsoft to enable it.)
And of course websites that posted how to enable the ability to create open documents in Office would be sued under the DMCA.
I guess it's a good thing that Microsoft isn't as evil as I am.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Carve me a slab will ya Mr. Ballmer? I'll fire up the grill.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I'm not the poster you're replying to, but I've also expressed the opinion that OpenOffice.org is (at least for now) inferior to MS Office in several ways. Here are a few, from direct personal experience, about Writer vs. Word in particular:
I could go on for a long time, but the upshot is that OpenOffice.org Writer is fine for routine word processing where all you need is typing a letter. Then again, so is any glorified text editor. When it comes to the extra stuff a WP is supposed to bring you -- better formatting/page layout, stylesheets/document templates, tables of contents, mail merge, etc. -- it just has too many elementary bugs and usability flaws for me to recommend it over MS Word any time soon. It's a good effort, and with time and some insight from the project leaders, it could easily overtake Word in these areas, but it's not there yet.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
``I sometimes find it difficult to believe these are real! Do any of the Microsoft PR people ever sit down and read statements they've made?''
It's also very well possible that this is not what the person originally said. The media very often edit someone's words. Of the cases where I know both the original wording and the one that finally appeared in the paper, I don't know a single instance where they were exactly the same.
Possible exception are press releases, which are often copied verbatim. But those usually only contain corporate spin to begin with.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
As you say, perhaps MS will come around to supporting OpenDocument when it becomes a common government purchasing criterion. However, given their past record (such as the POSIX interface in Windows and Internet Explorer's idiosyncratic view of HTML), one can expect that it will turn out either to be subtly broken or simply a lowest-common-denominator of support, present only to grab contracts and not intended seriously to be used.
In other words, I don't ever expect to see full-featured, comprehensive support of OpenDocument from MS.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
I have PCs runing win2k, XP and , until recently, even win98. Each newer windows had a newer and apparently "more" functional format for .doc files. the file exetension being no reliable guide to whether
a file would open correctly, and more importantly, save correctly
on any given machine, I gave up. MS obviously means something different
when they say "functional". I have had Open Office for over a
year now and don't screw with incompatibilities that are promised
as increases in "function" but work as a gimmick to force me to pay
for a newer version of the word processor.
Ballmer, will you and Kim Jong Bill please get a clue: The resentment
and rejection of your product is not just due to
the hurt and jealousy of all the little programmers whose careers you
swamped with your bullying ways in the market, its the damn software!
You COULD have sold a "vanilla" or cost reduced version of word that
just stuck to the basics, never obsoleted old documents and left your
flagship product free to bloat up with every feature you could debug
[more or less] but noooo, one cadillac fits all.
'Bye from massachusetts!
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
And it is big business. Lawyers, accountants, etc dictating, saved in a word document then sent over IP to a secretary either in the office or in India.
I disagree. Microsoft takes advantage of greed, but they aren't primarily driven by it. They have a vision of the world and how it should be, with them as the paternal Master of All.
It's not even about power, as such -- it's a missionary zeal. Power exists to serve the Cause, and money is just another form of power.
If it were about money, they could compromise by supporting OpenDocument. Instead it's about religion, and there's no room for them to retreat.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
In many ways I am surprised how long it has taken for end users to get to this point, but it is inevitable. As consumers, the everyday end users become more sofisticated in their computer knowledge, they realize that Microsoft is denying them their Digital Rights to create an use files anywhere, any time, and on any platform. Adobe realized this years ago. Users will happily pay lots of money for high quality, easy to use powerful tools, especially when they have choices. Microsoft is the anti-thesis of choice, and consumers are becoming more inclined to not choose Microsofts expensive proprietary garbage that infringes on the end users Digital Rights.
The only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned.
It seemed appropriate -- this is /. and so far there hasn't been a "breasts" thread.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
...is that is was Microsoft THEMSELVES who helped form OASIS - the group that came up with the OpenDocument schema. If Mr. Ballmer can stop throwing chairs and primal screaming for a few seconds, perhaps he can explain why MS pulled out of OASIS at the last minute and why MS Office will not accept that format. Specifically now MS, why is this format less functional? HINT: it's not an answer to say, 'because we don't control it'.
Either way, MS will have a lot of dancing to do to explain why it is that every other word processor will use OpenDoc but them. Expect to see the battle happen over and over again in other states governments, schools, etc.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
"...locked-in formats like OpenDocument..."
Old as the world: Accuse your adversaries of your own faults... so when they react and say that your's is really that, you can say that they are trying to do what, actually, you are doing.
OpenDoc is an open standard, and MS was invited to join (and they declined saying they didn't saw any customers requests for that standard!). On the other hand, which ones were invited to define the MSOffice files format and how open is that format?
Just wondering.
-FL
Please don't give them ideas!!
As for the claims of things you can do with Micro$oft Office: Most people don't have a clue what half of those are, which is why Micro$oft is using them. They really aren't actual features – or at least aren't implemented in Office – but if they can convince people that they are using long technical buzzwords, they can get $$$.
And for the record, I know a bunch of people who use Micro$oft products every day, and can't stand them. Our school district insists on shoving these stupid Micro$oft apps down everyone's throats, and not only do the (more tech-skilled) students like me not like them, but even most of the teachers don't. Are these really useful features?
Just my opinion.
(PS, if you have a Linux box and a high-speed Internet connection, you can probably set up a machine with SSH/VNC so that you can remote-access a system you like. Works every time for me.)
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
Yes, because MSN Search is not software. It is an army of killer monkeys trained to sort words into various barrels which are then counted by benign iguana overlords before being typed repeatedly by specialized "word guru" clams using a special stick and single-key keyboard. It took decades of research to find this combination, but we finally have the Soviets beat in word search!
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Become president, then he can stop all these 'rogue' states ( and companies ) from not feeding the microsoft trust fund.
"Its for this countries safety and security that i am enacting this groundbreaking 'data format security act'..."
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Let's see...
Microsoft, a company famous for proprietary, closed-source, monopoly, anti-trust, vendor lock-in software doesn't like FOSS? OMFGWTFBBQQFE!!!!!!111!!!!!1
"MY APOCALYPTIC TENOR HAS NOT BEEN DISPELLED!" - T-Rex, qwantz.com
That's why the policy reserves PDF for read-only publication.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I think this can be taken as conclusive proof that Microsoft's open standards talk is just plain crap.
I did my final exams in 1999 and I purly used Word (was it 5.0?) and I wrote papers from 40 pages up to 250 pages with a lots of embedded graphics, indexes, etc.
I had not a single problem. Nothing, absolutly nothing. Can it be, that Word got worse in the last years?
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
MS office while expensive is 100's of times better than openoffice. Open office doesnt work half the time.
You haven't used any additional functions in the file format because there aren't any. The software may add extra doo-hickeys (and have some utitility which OO.o and other OpenDocument software currently lacks), but that doesn't mean future software won't have these improvements (and be backwards-compatible, or at least conform to the next version of the open standard). It also doesn't mean these functions are actually used by end users (as you point out).
The problem is using PDF as a replacement for DOC. Even with OO.o it's not easy to open a PDF, edit it, and save as PDF. But PDF is fine for read-only documents.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Don't forget that word documents are actually OLE containers, alowing embedding of an OLE object, much like a plugin in a web page. In fact it is that aspect that causes problems sometimes, when the plug-in software is not installed on the platform where it is being viewed.
For my 5c worth, MS Office is a good piece of software, but I just find it a little too expensive for using at home. If it was $200 CAN, or less, as opposed to $700 then I might actually consider paying for it.
I have used the MacOS X version of office, and except for the major issue of not supporting Cocoa data formats, in the copy-paste process, its a very useable piece of software. I just wish they would address the outstanding issues. See this thread for more infor on the copy-paste issue. NeoOffice on the Mac still feels like it could do with a fair bit of GUI refinement.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
> No, their official position is that while an XML format is desirable, the functionality is more important, so until opendoc supports embedding multimedia into it states are better off sticking with doc. Criticise all you want, but misrepresenting them helps nobody.
This is very akin to the concept of a benevolent tyrant being better, because "he know what's better for the people". Which is BS.
If they value any other criteria (e.g., additional features/functions) over transparency (i.e., using open/free/standard formats) they're saying they do know better than their customers, and worst in this case, than the people.
This is wrong per se, you don't need to mention the criteria they value. The important fact is what the parent states: they are denying the importance of full transparency.
Let's not waste time on the bottle's cap, but focus on the beverage, shall we?
Upon hearing that Microsoft was being expunged by a state government, Ballmer said, "Just tell me it's not Massachussetts." When told that it was indeed Massachussetts, Ballmer became redfaced and apoplectic. Reaching for something to hurl, his hand grabbed empty air where his chair used to be. "You, um, you threw that when you heard the Google news, sir, we're still getting it replaced", said his meek assistant. "God D*MN IT!!", Ballmer reportedly remarked, then picked up a nearby box of unsold Windows2000 disks and hurled it through the plate glass of his huge office window. "I will f*cking BURY Massachussetts!!"
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
> but does not agree that the solution to "public records management is to force a single, less functional document format on all state agencies."
What's wrong with "less functional"?
I don't use 95% of the features in MS Word. Losing a few features in order to gain a single free standard seems like a win to me.
And there's no guarantee that OO.o's format will always be "less functional" in the future.
Voice-over-IP in documents and archiving? Does that make any sense at all?
Of course, maybe he means recorded conversations since he also seems to classify "audio" and "voice" separately, but if you have to call the same content by three different names to make it sound like you're offering more features, then he's really not offering as many extra features as he wants customers to believe.
Trying to lock out GPL's software with their little patents and UELA back fired on them in a big way this time. Had they actually proposed a open format in which anyone could play they could have perhaps even strengthed their market. Instead the worst possible outcome has happened the customer turned their back on them. Instead those dirty tactics may have just spelled the end or at least hastened their demise.
Don't think the rest of the states will not follow it is in the best interests of the people. Yes they have plenty of bribery money but it is a no brainer to support a open document format.
Got Code?
No, now that microsoft has abused a semi-democratic society and come out on top, it serves no purpose to them.
A dictatorship is what they are shooting for now. ( as much as a coporation can be a dictator )
Citizens dont exist in this new future of theirs. We are to all only be indentured consumers.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... either make use of it's "investment" in Sun and have Sun object, claiming OpenOffice is an infringement on some aspect of StarOffice, or just come out of the shadows and play the patent card.
I'm sure there is some set of dubious patents that have been awarded to Microsoft such that they can tie up the state of Massachusetts in the courts for years to come, with mind-numbing legal expenses, to the point that it will be easier for the state to reconsider and put on the BSA "Microsoft-only" shackles in exchange for a minimal annual license fee -- which may have been the state's goal to begin with.
If we examine the annual tax revenue that Massachusetts hauls in, vs the annual revenue that Microsoft bathes in, it becomes apparent that there is no contest in this. If Massachusetts courts had the final word on the issue, the state might stand a chance.
If Microsoft can manage to appeal/otherwise escalate this into the federal courts, the DOJ will undoubtedly intervene on behalf of Microsoft. It's not called the "best government money can buy" for nothing, y'know.
There are a lot of "if"'s in the above statements. But when I examine each one, it comes out advantage: Microsoft.
as a resident of MA (and i am sure others will agree with me here) I have to wonder how much this is due to the desire to use open standards as it is because the money allocated to buy Office "disappeared". Money has a tendency to disappear here and things end up being more expensive than initialy planned. Take a look at the big dig, took 20 years to make, costing 9x more, just opened and it is already falling apart.
Elected officials arent really elected, since we dont really have elections here, there is no opposition. We like to call it the peoples republic. My prediction; when more money is allocated or ms gives a bigger discount, they will switch back to office.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Software has miniscule barriers to entry compared to anything larger than a roadside farmer's market. All you need is: developers and their PCs. Any developer who can be called one already has a PC so there's half the assets already gathered. Now imagine instead trying to make a new factory to make the chips that go in said PCs.
It's easy to believe the barriers are low when one is getting one's software free. e.g. OSS, or BT.
But as the "Cyan closing" story demonstrated, the majority here are terrible when it comes to assessment of the work involved (and hence worth) in creative endeavours. Just because it ends up as bits doesn't change this fact. Just the ease at which one can indulge one's baser human qualities.
Even OpenOffice isn't an accurate reflection of "low barriers" when is comes to software in general (and OSS in particular not being a panacea). It was originally StarOffice from a commercial company (not originally OSS). Then another commercial company bought it, Sun. (can you feel the 'lower barriers' now?). Then in an alturistic move they basically said "we'll take a chance on OSS possiably recouping our costs and then some", and released the code to the OpenSourceCommunity. Even then the "barriers" weren't lowered because someone had to go through the code to understand what was happenning. Then more "work" was involved in evolving OpenOffice to were it is now. So NO the "barriers" aren't as low as people think. Lower than some other industries, but never as low as "Hello World".
So what if Open Office can't support sound and multimedia? It's not like if a government would send out glitzy documents with animation!!! They're civil servants, for crying out loud! They're people who have been trained to be excessively dull, uninspiring and certainly not innovative, so the "dull" Open Office format will suit them perfectly!
They will "support" those open formats in a broken way and keep their own proprietary format.
That will discourage users to choose those formats yet fulfill the requirement to support open formats.
Alternatively they will interpret it in subtly different ways that make the saved document only usable in Word. (Think HTML and IE...)
News today
i burton.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/politics/04hall
indicates that Halliburton is already wetting its beak.
Except the Gates disagrees. He's on public record as saying in the future hardware will be free and buying as computer means paying for software. I want to meet his economics professor.
The problem with M$ Free Office Viewers (TM) (C) is they are not free.
MA does very well in choosing free formats, even if they turn to be not free, rather than free enterprise offerings which are known to be non-free.
Ever heard "The Dog and The Wolf" fable?
Although, it's probably just a ploy to gain a more favorable contract. Anything that chaps MSFT's ass, Ballmer or Gates specifically, is good for all humanity.
Science is about precision, and we're learning precisely what pisses MSFT off. Keep up the good work!
These articles are delicious with irony. I sometimes find it difficult to believe these are real! Do any of the Microsoft PR people ever sit down and read statements they've made?
I realize that it's a rhetorical question, but yes, they do. That's why they still have jobs, which they have done magnificently (they haven't been sued for lying, have they?).
Im use MSword to update a book and find that it has truly awful features; Bad x-referencing (compare with LaTeX), quirky font handling, inconsistent handling of embedded stuff. I have some docs with visio inserts that crash word on on some vmware images of mine, yet the same doc is readable by others,
But OOo has had some awful usability features that get in the way of the fact that its core functionality is pretty good. Example: its auto-collect words for autocompletion adds words that are not spelled right. It should be vagely smart and only add correct words, otherwise you end up replicating spelling errors. Example: its "do you really want to save this as MS word" complaints, repeated automatically when you have autosave turned on. I dont think the IDE is ready (with 1.1; I have hopes for 2.0 but bemoan its java dependencies)
The alternative i would like (esp on Linux), is framemaker, but it is very expensive on windows and not currently available on linux. A cheap -$100-$150 version of frame would have me buy a copy for the linux box and the windows laptop.
I do have high hopes for OOo, in particular, I hope its cost ($/£/0) will overcome its usability defects.
It goes to show that not all MS users are borg drones. Some people actually see that paying a few hundred bucks when you can get the same thing for free is just plain stupid. Capitalism is closer to Communism that you think.
He's done it before and he will do it again.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
Your post was right on. Government would benefit from a unified format. I had thought that PDF was that format. PDF is the format of all IRS publication downloads.
Microsoft calls the competition communists to make the competition angry. Microsoft doesn't mean real communists, they mean dirty dirty shizno communists.
Your last line was dumb. For future reference please inspect this short essay on the political spectrum. It is brilliant.
http://www.baen.com/chapters/axes.htm
ALL ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM by Jerry Pournelle
The fact that Microsoft Word can export documents as plain text is evidence that Microsoft are are giving false reasoning for their refusal to add OpenDocument support to their products.
See aren't you glad I took that complicated string and enclosed it in XML? Fantastic work! Now all you need to do is fine the encryption string for it to reveal the secret password.
The point is, XML is only useful in complicated schemas to the program that wrote it. Sure you _COULD_ program something to recognize Word's XML, but you're going through recognizing every tag for bold, tables, paragraph marks and so on. That's not really open because it's in XMl. It's open because they publish a clear and easy to use schema for us to implement into other programs.
XML has become the new buzzword but to Microsoft it's nothing more than an ability to stick proprietary data between some XML open/close tags.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
how would you put voice-over-ip into a word processing document?
o cument approach is poor design to begin with, but is VERY poor design for public documents.
No, the question is, why would you put voice-over-ip into a word processing document? The purpose of a word-processing document (text of, e.g., laws and regulations) is entirely different from the purpose of a video or audio record. No need to mix 'em in a single document that citizens need open access to. You can't print video, so keep it separate from things in printed form. It's much easier to access the pieces separately (video players and text processors don't fundamentally need to read one another's formats, and are available separately in platform-agnostic forms.)
Simplicity and ease of public access are best served by uncluttered document formats; all this every-dang-media-format-conceivable-in-a-single-d
Swami predicts: Microsoft will change its mind (either very quietly, or by claiming that this was always their intention) when the cost of stubbornly snubbing the open format becomes insupportable, as other governmental users start mandating open formats.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
OK, I've read the typical array of bashing connected to any MS story. While I don't disagree that MS has made some sleazy business choices, this does not mean that their competition is any more angelic. Here are a few tidbits of food for thought:
Eric Kriss is a busy man. As well as his heroic efforts on behalf of the people of Massachusetts, he is also quite the entrepreneur. Along with his boss, Governor Mitt Romney, he founded Bain Capital a 17 billion dollar capital management firm that owns pieces of such widely diverged companies as Staples, Dominos, Burger King and Toys-R-US. Bain also tried to buyout the entire NHL and partnered with the Chinese in the attempted buyout of Maytag. He also worked for previous Massachusetts Governor William Weld. He took some time off to start a couple of companies of his own before continuing in public service. Workmode offers a web-based subscription model project management application called iProject. Follow the link and notice to what competitor he compares his product. Anyone want to take a guess before they click? Kriss started MediVision, Inc and was CEO of MediQual Systems, both health care companies. MediQual is especially interesting since it deals with medical information and documents - like web forms submitted to a state government. Yes sir, I bet they can make your practice compliant with that new format for billing documents pretty darn quick. When was the last time you believed a health care company was on the side of the people? Finally, take a look at this, looks like MediVision wanted to cover their butts before paying some government office holders an honorarium at a political fundraiser. Hey, I'm not saying that there is anything WRONG with any of this. Just that factors other than "because it is an overriding imperative of the American democratic system" may be involved in the decision. What I'm saying is: a wolf in geeks clothing is still a wolf.
You can call OpenDocument an 'open' format, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have to be licensed. The XML format is actually provided by Sun and a license IS required. There are some interesting terms involved in the license, including cancellation if the licensee sues the licensor over ANY "infringement of claims essential to implement any W3C Recommendation" and the granting of reciprocal licenses. MS might have some legitimate hesitations about acquiring such a license. By the way, you need a license for PDF as well. And Reader STILL takes forever to load.
This whole discussion is about forms used by a state government for internal AND external use. Meaning the forms used to communicate with the citizens by the government. This can include informational presentations (possibly multimedia), online registration for services (motor vehicles, voter registration, unemployment, schools, etc.) and yes, maybe even embedded VOIP (click here to leave a voice mail for your city councilman). Why would a company spend time and money to develop gee whiz technology and willingly support a standard incapable of its implementation? How willing will companies and individuals be to toss out their tried and true Office routine and switch to apps that even most zealots describe as 'catching up' and 'almost as good as' Office? And that's not taking into account Office 12, due in '96, and, you guessed it, featuring improved XML. Do you call the government forcing you to quit using the overwhelmingly most popular business document tool if you want to communicate with them a good thing?
So what I'm saying is: there ain't no fre
For that matter, I didn't realize until a few weeks ago that RTF wasn't an open format. (OK, revoke my geek license). I was inspired by some stallmanic comments somewhere to track it down, and guess what, it's defined by Microsoft. The link is the definition of "RTF 1.8" which is the standard for Office 2003.(You have to download an
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
Waahhhh! Msft...what a bunch of whiney bitches...
I guess they forgot that "public" != proprietary.
Now let's hear about Balmer(sic?) "burying" somebody else...
Give me a frigg'n break..
I have the comparison ready to go here. Billy how much you got on you?
I own Word licenses for OS X and Windows, but I just like OO.org better - seems simpler and stays out of my way when writing. I used OO.org for 2 of my last 3 books.
The OO.org 2.0 beta is especially good.
I have written a few blog entries on the massively huge advantages of open file formats - I won't repeat myself hereexcept to say that took me 5 minutes to write Java code to perfectly handle OO.org and AbiWord file formats. For my GPLed NLP project, I spent huge amounts of time trying to dea with Microsoft Office formats, and did no really do very well.
As a Microsoft stock owner, I wrote a letter to Microsoft compalining about their failure to also support OO.org file formats - I never received a response, which I think is rude behavior. After not receiving an answer since the 3 or 4 months that I wrote the letter, I am thinking of dumping their stock.
You're not going to cut into his supply worth mentioning.
HOWEVER, speaking as someone who knows, I have a suggestion that will pay off more than you can imagine in the future [1]:
You be the one to handle night feedings. When Junior's "empty" alarm goes off, You get up and bring him to the filling station, plug him in, and wait for the pump to stop. Then You burp him, clean him, and put him back to bed. My oldest are twins, my youngest is 20 -- and I guarantee you it was worth every second of lost sleep.
[1] Future, not excluding later this week.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I bet they are doing a hell of a monkey dance in Redmond now.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
What you are saying may be true for small software packages but it is definitely not true for any enterprise software or anything with a large scope. I would count MS Office, MS Sql Server, MS Windows, and MS Visual Studio in the large software category. It's not that easy to create some large software project from scratch. Although the entry costs themselves are low, the development and support costs are not.
If anything, certain hardware has even lower barrier to entry than software. A lot of hardware products, whether it is networking stuff like low-end routers or low-end sound cards or even some decent semiconductor device can be developed for much lower costs than software. One just needs to look at the multitude of computer hardware and peripherals (a huge number from Asian companies that didn't even exit 5 years ago) on the market to see what I mean...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
People who knock Draw are probably Microsoft shills :-)
Draw is simple and effective, getting the job done and staying out of my way.
It is the right of every citizen to view public documents. They all should be in a format, readable by any operating system. Period. No exceptions.
Bill Gates is probably more right than wrong. If you look at the last 10 or 15 years, hardware costs have droppped a lot compared to software costs. Some hardware is almost at some very low marginal cost level (eg. keyboard, mouse, sound card, etc). A sound card used to cost $100 to $150 around 10 years ago; it costs $20 to "$0" (if integrated into motherboard) now.
Video game consoles are literally sold at a loss becaus the profits that can be made on teh software (i.e. game) is much higher. The console still costs quite a bit but it wouldn't surprise me if companies offer free game consoles in 10 years.
Even the valuation placed on Google (although I'm not sure if Google is a tech company or a media/advertising company) by the stock market sort of indicates a new trend where software companies make money, while hardware ones struggle.
I think Bill Gates will turn out to be right. I don't know if hardware will be free per se, but it will be very cheap comapred to software...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
A publication like a book is meant to be laid out in, you guessed it, a layout program. Pagemaker, Quark, Indesign, Scribus, even MS Publisher are the kinds of things the professionals use, and are the kinds of formats the printers ultimately expect to receive. For technical publications, LaTeX can work fantastically as well, assuming your printer can handle it.
Word is not designed to handle several hundred page documents. An associate of mine once had a publisher stupidly require that his book be submitted in Word format. He had many stories to tell: things like the spellcheck no longer working after the first hundred pages or so...and not notifying you of it.
I highly reccomend you suggest any of the aforementioned layout programs to your colleagues. While several are pretty pricey, both Scribus and LaTeX are OSS, and if they are at a university, chances are they have one of the Adobe products available. Believe me, it is a LOT easier to get those equations lined up where you want them in a program actually designed to do it
The right tool for every job.
once you go slack, you never go back
The grandparent wasn't talking about free software. He was talking about the difference between "ooh, shiney software, who cares about the T&Cs" and "we're paying HOW MUCH for permission to use our own data???" In other words, exactly what you're talking about :P
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Someday soon I hope! I'd rather have an Open Office documents from the government. This way we can still read the documents after we overthrow the bastards that let 10,000 peoples suffer for days and days in New Orleans!
Software freedom...I love it!
I mean, really, capitalism doesn't work any better than any other system.
What matters is that people have a voice and can override the powers that be when the powers that be are asshats that make tremendously poor decisions.
We don't got that right now.
gone ape shit again and declared he's going to "Fucking kill Massachusetts!!!"
Inquiring minds want to know
I'm sure after hearing the news he threw a couch or something.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Replacements for Word are easy to come by, and OpenOffice is not the first to provide a real threat to Word. Yes, the proprietary DOC format does provide a lot of resistance, but it's only part of the picture.
Same deal with Excel. I mean come on, they just ran a story today about VisiCalc...it's not like it's hard to make an Excel clone in 2005.
PowerPoint is...well, frankly, if you're making presentations that use more than the basic, most common functionality of PowerPoint and its competitors, you're probably doing more than is necessary. PowerPoint is designed to aid you in making presentations. If you want to make fancy videos, use whatever software they use to make commercials.
But OUTLOOK...Outlook is the one reason I and many businesses I know do not switch away from Office. The makers of OpenOffice are doing a great job, but they or someone else needs to step up to the plate and make an Outlook killer, if anyone really wants to get out from under Microsoft's monopolistic heel.
You know what would be great? A standardized, open email standard designed to replace the Outlook-Exchange Server system. There's a bunch of companies making so-called "Exchange killers," but so far none of them have brought their products to a point where they work well enough.
Until you can get a GOOD replacement for Outlook and Exchange Server, big corporations and governments will not switch away from Office. Seriously, it's the elephant in the room.
The word processor and the computerized spreadsheet have been around forever. They reached their "works perfectly for what 95% of people do with it" state nearly a decade ago. Microsoft, and most other big software companies, have this absurd notion that their customers should be forced to buy the same software over and over again, just because. The truth is, if Microsoft never released another version of Excel, no one would care. We'd keep using Excel 97, in fact. And Word, well, Word 2002 still has some usability issues, but that's just because Microsoft can't seem to get it right no matter how many times they try.
But my point is, software should not be re-bought until something better comes along. And not better at doing some useless function nobody cares about, like adding VOIP to your text document. It needs to actually be better at something that *matters* to the people upgrading. And since word processors and spreadsheet program already do what 95% of people want perfectly well as it is, this means it's extremely unlikely MS or anyone will be able to improve the experience with new upgrades, which means there's no reason people should be paying for a new version of Word year after year.
How un-american.
A public company is going to tell the legislative (virtually: the people) what they should adopt? *shudder*
Micro-Soft may have grown powerful, and may have tried to exert pressure like this before.
This time the rumours about the superiority of Monopoly-Office have been greatly exagerated. Redmond may be in for a surprise how ubiquitous the use of OpenOffice.org v2.0 has already become.
Yours,
Waran
Sig? What sig?! Ah, sig! Sigh.
Someone needs to explain to MS what 'lock-in' means. (Or at least, ensure that any audience they spout this drivel at understands it - although it does seem like the decision-makers in MA understand)
Using OpenDoc does not in any way shape or form lock-in the choice of software used to manipulate it, unlike in the MS World, where using MS-Word 'DOC' format *does* lock-in one to using MS software only.
They don't need their documents becoming 'unsuppoprted' every two ot five years.
For fun try opening an old version of a document.
In WordPerfect, no problem. In Word, you're fucked, and considering that they're dealing with legal documents... It night be by some really mean guy.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Gates is really whistling in the dark, trying to justify Microsoft's exhorbitant prices, licensing models and profit through misdirection.
and you can read and write above a 3rd grade level. Lots of people can't do that. The idea would be to have all the information needed or wanted readily at hand, so that someone too stupid to browse a web site could find it.
Video is useful for the illiterate (ditto pictures) and voip's for the dumb who can't look up phone #'s. In addition to the stupid, you've also got people who can't speak english let alone read it. Ya, that sucks and probably shouldn't happen, but they're a powerful minority, and won't be a minority for too much longer...
Oh, and you don't want to print, because someone has to pay for those printouts.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Millions of dollars saved on fruitless lawsuits, perhaps millions more generated by innovative suppliers who employ people to create such software (or who provide paid support for the existing FOSS office suite(s)). Anyone who wishes to interact with the government from that point forward will also have to have the capability of reading and writing documents in the new format.
Problem solved.
This won't work in all cases, perhaps, but when a viable, well-supported open standard exists (tcp/ip vs. SNA, anyone?, Ethernet, perhaps? Maybe a little HTML/XML?), why support a proprietary standard which does nothing but enrich a monopolist and locks you into their format to boot?
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
It's true that everything costs SOMETHING, but I think Bill Gates' point is that the cost of hardware will drop close to zero and that companies will make money off services and software. I don't think he is saying that hardware will cost zero. There will always be the cost of the physical material, shipping, and so on, but those costs might be very low to the point of not mattering at all.
On top the examples I listed before, another one is disposable cameras. You can literally get free disposable cameras right now. Some companies give them away for free but even the ones that cost something (say $20) cost as little as twice the cost of printing/developing pictures. There is no reason that couldn't happen in the computer industry. I can easily see companies giving away game consoles or basic computer hardware for free. Even companies like Google are rumoured to be building Wi-Fi networks that will be offered for free to the public.
"The only way his comments make any sense is if Microsoft provided a computer with every OS purchase. The consumer still pays for the hidden cost."
That is sort of what I expect to happen. It could very well happen, where companies give away hardware for free, while charging for services and software. I predict that the game console market will reach that point within 10 years (if online gaming takes off). It also wouldn't surprise me if cable companies, movies studios, or whoever, gives away free DVD (or some media) players for free while charging for the content (movies, tv shows, etc). I think that's what Gates is predicting--and I share the same vision...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
This is a big mistake.
Forcing government agencies to use an unfinished, unproven, premature document format, to which *no* real applications support, other than SO/OOo, rather than an accepted format that thousands of applications support in various commercial office suites and open source applications.
And that is a good reason because?
If the MS Office formats have worked for so long, why should it have to change?
There are cuntless companies and even governemnt agencies still using office 9x, 2000 and XP, a format for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access that is compatible from Office 97-2002, in many applications.
But this coming from the US government doesn't seem surprising.
A crazy OSS "advocate" will do more harm than a crazy CKAD (Commercial Kool-Aid Drinker).
MS Office
Corel Office
Star Office
Open Office
K Office
Hancom Office
Ability Office
Gobe Productive
Gnome Office (ABI, Gnumeric, etc)
AppleWorks
iWork
Importers and Exporters of Office formats in thousands of applications
Thousands of tools and add-ons to MS Office
VBA to develop applications within Office (although many may suck)
MS Office's thousands of features, whether or not they're all used
versus
Star Office
Open Office
Fucking Crazy
1. 80% of .doc files don't require any of Word's features, and can be .rtf or .txt instead.
2. 90% of Word users only know and use 10% of its features.
Plus, no one at Microsoft fully understands the .doc format, and it's not fully documented, even within MS. Only a fool would rely on a format which the author doesn't understand.
"Automatic numbering is one of the clumsiest parts of Word and should be left out of this comparison since it sucking in OO just makes it the same as Word.
Tables of contents are pretty shambolic in Word too. Try embedding a Visio flowchart in Word then generating a TOC and it creates a copy of the Visio chart as a TOC entry. I mean who the hell thought that piece of genius up."
Don't blame Word because you don't know how to use it, which is clear to anyone who actually does from your comment.
Vote for Pedro
that is strange for Massachusetts to say that since it's still in the process of migrating towards Office. They are probably the most Microsft centric offices out there.
"Depends on your definition of "works", I suppose. Raw capitalism "works" in the same way that Darwinian evolution "works" -- the strongest (and most brutal) players prey on the rest until they've squeezed every last drop of money out of them. Eventually, you end up with a monopoly or oligopoly with control over everything, and everyone else is a wage slave under their control."
Any economist will tell you you're full of crap. Monopolies only occur in markets with a barrier to entry, either natural or man-made. In all other cases, equivalent products are produced by competing firms whose profit margin approaches zero.
Vote for Pedro
I wonder if WP and Apple's office is going to offer the format. If so, then you have OpenOffice/StarOffice,kword,abiword,Word perfect, Apples office, and hopefully IBM will offer it with their application (remains to be seen). If MS is the only one with out it, they may very well become fourth rate.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
love to see the repair order for steve's office after that one ;P
Yes, because OLE documents are a blessing to everyone and their superb design and architecture will last forever.
I'd rather see the access problem solved first. Most people have access to MS Word or at least something that can open it, so IMO the real barrier to democracy isn't the file format.
but does not agree that the solution to "public records management is to force a single, less functional document format on all state agencies."
Very true. So why then, Microsoft, are you trying to push Microsoft Office on this organisation?
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
Actually, I was referring to the single axis (left vs. right) view of politics. (Obviously there are better multi-axis models, but for the related topic, it's more anecdotal I was going for.)
/. is a place of diverse individuals, and as such, much information on the topic (and links to papers). I'm sure I'll correctly identify a more precise statement of my intended thoughts next time... perhaps "Communal versus Tyranny" or "Hippy versus Yuppy" (though, I'm sure I'd get into muddy water with the "Yippy's").
Of course, if you look at political theory versus practice, there aren't much differences. Communism and Naziism is dominated by a dictator-like rule by violence system. Single axis models stick out in my mind, though, simply because the only true definition of personal politics is an axis for every single issue. All other models fail to properly define, imho. For instance, a pro-choice Republican.
In my mind, theoretical communism is the epitomy of democracy. Rule of the people, for the people, by the people, with the welfare of the people in mind. Naziism, in theory and practice, is dictatorship, with national interests over personal interests. In practive, communism has yet to live up to its ideals, and naziism (as a socialist movement) never lived up to its ideals. I could be wrong, but it is with that frame of mind that I added that last comment.
But,
Now, if your PS is asking if I think Gates is Hitler, absolutely not. Everyone knows Gates can't grown any facial hair.
I8-D
Actually, a french man named Guy Negre invented an engine and car that runs on air. They've been trying to get this stuff on the roads for a good number of years actually:
Couldn't someone just "develop" an OpenDocument converter for MS Office from the Microsoft SDK and release it for free. Or under LGPL.
Someone had to develop the WordPerfect, Wordstar, RTF, and all the other optional text and graphics converters that Microsoft includes with MS Office.
It seems the SaveAs "OpenDocument" function would be just as simple.
Maybe even the code that's used in OpenOffice reader and writer converters could be plugin-ized so the streams could feed a generic software harness to spoon feed MS Office on the way in.. and out..
I've noticed there seems to be a lot of thinkers but few people willing to suffer through COM programming or lesser methods to add-on to villian-ware.
Perhaps Microsft was just stating "We won't invest money in paying our programmers to do this.." and it was just a general statement.
It might even be seen as defensive in an SEC filing to their stock holders.
We won't spend owner dollars in undermining our current native formats.
I'm really neutral on this.. but it looks rather harmless.
KB Q111716
The files included with this Application Note comprise the software development kit (SDK) for 16-bit and 32-bit external text file converters.
This SDK provides the technical information you need in order to develop external file converters that can import and export formatted text between
Microsoft Word for Windows and foreign binary files.
Early this year, or last. It got some media attention on Slashdot or Technocrat?- But I've been unable to find it ... Anyone remember where this is? :)
Microsoft isn't serious about not supporting the format. The fact is that as the OpenDocument format grows in support, Microsoft is going to have no choice but to support it unless they want to start losing chunks of their customer base.
Of course, Microsoft doesn't have to be nice about it. My suspicion is that any OpenDocument file opened in Word is going to be somewhat broken, and likewise any Word document will be somewhat broken as well. This is all due to OpenOffice being a broken format, obviously, and not Office's fault.
Of course OpenOffice will probably do just fine converting between OpenDocument and Word, or at least better than Microsoft Office anyway.
But I do agree that it is important to get a good Outlook killer on board.
Finally, someone in American IT at large stands up to Microsoft. My hat is off to Massachusetts for having the courage and the brains to do so. And, my God, look at Microsoft's nervous, deer-caught-in-the-headlight response. Rattling off a litany of technologies that rarely (if ever) find themselves in bread and butter word processing documents isn't really moving. If that's the best perspective MS can bring to the bargaining table, it should be no wonder why Massachusetts is going open source.
But Microsoft is at a disadvantage here: it's quite rare that a government or corporate IT professional in this country doesn't just sit back and suck-up to MS's bullshit. Up until now, Microsoft has rarely needed to explain itself to it's customers, or (gasp!) evaluate the validity of it's own products. This case shows just how out of practice they really are. An almost historic occasion where the "nobody got fired for choosing Microsoft" idiocy finally checked itself at the door. Here's hoping it won't be the last.
Because the way Microsoft's going, they don't see it as a Word Processing document any more. They see it as an access point for exchanging information, and there's really no reason (in Microsoft's view) why there should be boundaries on what types of information or interaction should be found in what places.
I don't particularly like the way that Microsoft operates, and I have no doubt that their criticism of the Massachusetts decision is plain and simple FUD. As you say, it probably makes much more sense for a government entity, and probably most other entities, to use well defined, straight-forward formats for storing its important information. I think it's a bit short-sighted, though, to criticise Microsoft too much for mixing together VOIP and Word Processing.
They're just working with a different model from the traditional metaphor that most people are familiar with. (No, I don't think they're doing a very good job being clear about what metaphor, if any, they are using.) Really though, the only reason people presently think it's strange to mix Word Processing and Voice Over IP is because we've so far been conditioned to think of a Word Processing document as a printable piece of paper. There are plenty of other things with writing on them that aren't paper, and it's not necessarily true that a word processor shouldn't mimic or act like them just as much, if a user wants to use it that way.
In Microsoft's world, someone will be able to click an icon (or access a "thing", or whatever) without having to care about what it is. They'll simply get whatever it contains, whether it's printable typewriter-style text, or some kind of portal for speaking to someone else. Similarly, people will be able to construct whatever media they want, without necessarily needing to think about whether they're dealing with a word processor, a spreadsheet, or a video camera. The biggest barrier is people's ability to adapt from how they relate to things in the real world. Metaphors are really only needed for people who have prior experience with something else, and there are some valid arguments that metaphors cause more problems than they solve.
I don't know if this is an ideal way to go or not, but I think you really need to recognise that Microsoft is not necessarily limiting themselves to the traditional ways of using an Office Suite any more. For better or worse, this is one of the differences between Microsoft and Open Office.
The Attorney General of Massachussets, who has been fighting Microsoft when all others settled, is running for Govenor. He is pushing this iniative and you can e sure that there is politics on another level involved in this.
The other thing to consider is that the so-called standard being discussed was started and pushed as an anti-Microsoft standard. This is not to say that it isn't a good start or even a good standard, but let's be honest about this.
..... but OpenDocument compatibility is coming to Office anyway, and whether Microsoft likes it or not. Office has an embedded programming language, a bastardised dialect of BASIC, which includes a document object model. So, it ought to be possible to write a series of Office macros which turned an Office document into an OpenDocument document -- and maybe back as well.
..... or at least, not hard enough. Probably the ones who are still in awe of computers don't even realise what ought to be possible. I've been connecting stuff together all my life -- before computers, it was record players, tape recorders and radio sets, recording signals from the wireless and amplifying them through the record player's speaker. My first VCR, with its separate audio and video sockets opened up exciting new possibilities in connectivity {4 hour long recordings of radio broadcasts from pop festivals! Complete with teletext-style graphics from the Model B, which were initially only there to keep the muting off but evolved into a kind of artform in their own right}. Every computer I have ever owned has had something unusual plugged into it.
Now the only thing keeping Office popular is the lack of interoperability with anything else. Lack of interoperability is usually considered to be a bad thing -- name me one electricity company that sells 48 volts DC. We have already seen protectionism fail when countries did things like adopting different TV standards from their neighbours effectively to prevent imports of cheap tellies {setmakers just went multi-standard, and SCART connectors with RGB input eventually became the norm}.
These realities do not appear to have hit the computer market yet
But I don't think I represent most of the population. I think most people don't expect things to be connected together and just work like that; they're still so taken in by the fact that they just press the keys and the letters come up on the screen, and later pop out of the printer, that they don't think past that. That ought to change in the future; but it will depend more on the fact of clue filtering slowly through to the population than anything any major player does {unless that something is to cause sudden and large-scale data loss}.
My soultion would be to use Office's own macro language to deal with the conversion. These macros could then be released as quasi-Open Source software {as open as anything running on a closed platform can be}. The only thing Microsoft could do about that is try and prove they own a patent on converting documents between Office and OpenDocument standards; but then they would expose themselves to the patent being struck down on the grounds that the invention had not been worked {which is still valid in some jurisdictions IMMSMC}. Not to mention that it would constitute an admission that Microsoft already had the technology to perform the conversion {otherwise the patent would be a mere work of science fiction, therefore null and void by default}. This would have the effect of casting doubt on other things Microsoft are fond of saying.
Once a mechanism was in place for converting documents between OpenDocument and Office formats, a business would then need only one PC running Office -- and then only for as long as they have any Office files to convert to OpenDocument. Under well-established doctrines, they would even be within their rights to sell that machine to another business when it was finished with.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"If the program you are in competition with is $140-Over $400! you don't have to be a perfect replacement,Just a "good enough"."
It didn't work for WordPerfect in the mid to late 90s.
Most of the time WP was a much better program than Word. WordPerfect was (and still is) much less expensive then Word.
How many computers have you seen lately with WordPerfect on them?
Sometimes it takes more than quality and price to overcome marketing.
Disclaimer: I haven't used any version of WordPerfect since 8, so I don't know if the newer versions are any good, or if they support OpenDoc. I also don't much care.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Kword (part of Koffice, the KDE office suite) can open, edit and save PDF files directly.
My little brother was applying for jobs, and was frustrated because everyone wanted his resumé in Word format. Now you can do it in OOo, but then you have to deal with it not looking quite right when you open it in Word. That's how they get you.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.