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Embracing and Extending Microsoft Office

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the filling-the-voids dept.

ReadWriteWeb writes "In an interview with ex-Excite founder and current JotSpot CEO Joe Kraus, Richard McManus explores the Web Office and how JotSpot aims to 'embrace and extend' some of Microsoft's office products. Kraus explains how JotSpot went about extending Excel's basic functionality in three ways: sharing spreadsheets, every row is a wiki page, and the ability to mashup data from your own hard drive with data on the Web. Although JotSpot won't challenge Microsoft's office software supremacy with a web-based office suite, expect Google to rise to the challenge of building an interconnected suite of networked office applications."

14 comments

  1. In other words... by babbling · · Score: 4, Funny

    These guys are going to make MS Office even more incompatible with other Office suites than it already is. They're probably going to try and make it at least partially incompatible with itself, too.

    This is like adding another layer of Microsoft on top of a layer of Microsoft.

    1. Re:In other words... by croddy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, you know what they say -- the only problem that can't be solved by adding another layer of Microsoft is when you've got too many layers of Microsoft!

    2. Re:In other words... by Theatetus · · Score: 4, Informative
      They're probably going to try and make it at least partially incompatible with itself, too.

      MS Office is already incompatible with itself. Have you ever tried to open an old (say, '97) file in Office 2003? Ironically enough, Open Office is more compatible with old MS Office formats than modern MS Office is -- that's why my company has to use OOo, because we get a LOT of documents from people who are still using 10-year-old software.

      --
      All's true that is mistrusted
    3. Re:In other words... by babbling · · Score: 2, Informative

      You're right, but I meant same version of Office, but one with JotSpot's "extensions", and the other without. In other words, apart from the other incompatibilities that already exist, this will add yet another.

    4. Re:In other words... by justins · · Score: 1
      Have you ever tried to open an old (say, '97) file in Office 2003?

      All the time. It works great.
      --
      Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
  2. Extending question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is it possible to "extend" MS office, by adding an OpenDocument filter?

    For those people that can't or don't want to install OpenOffice, it would be nice if they could just install a small plugin.

    No idea if microsoft provides any kind of framework for this sort of thing outside its own development staff.

    1. Re:Extending question... by Forbman · · Score: 1

      All you w/should probably need is OpenDoc->Office XML Doc format XSLT script... Better than OpenDoc XML->RTF (RTF, although not XML, is a tagged-text format).

    2. Re:Extending question... by cerberusss · · Score: 1
      All you w/should probably need is OpenDoc->Office XML Doc format XSLT script.

      [sarcastic]Yeah, how hard can that be?[/sarcastic]

      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  3. It's all in the name... by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 1

    Can start-up failure be predicted based on stupid names? JotSpot? Come on... Or is it just a machine designed to eat VC?

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
  4. This isn't new. by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 1

    Ironically enough, Open Office is more compatible with old MS Office formats than modern MS Office is

    Borland's Turbo Assembler was more compatible with MS' Macro Assembler than Macro Assembler itself.

    Nothing new under the sun...

  5. Microsoft is the world leader in incompatibility. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "MS Office is already incompatible with itself."

    Not only that, each version of MS Office is incompatible with itself.

    I don't normally use MS Word, but I've heard stories, and recently it happened to me. I worked for several hours on an MS Word document, and MS Word gave an error message that said there was something wrong with the file, that only it had touched. MS Word refused to go further.

    Luckily I had read about the solution. I opened the MS Word file in Open Office and saved it in MS Word format. After that the file would open in MS Word again.

    --
    Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?

  6. Re:Microsoft is the world leader in incompatibilit by BJH · · Score: 1

    Similar thing here - trying to cut&paste in a long Word document, Word would always crash at a certain location. Saved it, opened it in OOo, saved it again, and could now do the cut&paste without problems in Word.

  7. Embracing and Extending Microsoft Office ..... by Hellboy0101 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can we add Extinguish to that as well?

    --
    Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!
  8. Re:Microsoft is the world leader in incompatibilit by simong · · Score: 1

    There is probably a filter for Office97 docs somewhere in the depths of MS support. I know I had it with Office 2000, and I'm fairly certain that Office:Mac will read them with no problem. Although I'm still waiting for the day that there is a native version of Ooo for OS X.