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Open Standards Initiative Fails in Massachusetts

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the after-much-ado dept.

walterbyrd writes "Massachusetts has decided to use Microsoft's Open-XML standard. This decison: 'stands in sharp contrast to the positions taken by predecessor CIOs Peter Quinn and Louis Gutierrez, backed by then governor (and now-presidential hopeful) Mitt Romney. Both Quinn and Gutierrez insisted on including only "open standards" in the ETRM, and withstood significant pressure from Microsoft to give ground and accept OOXML...'"

5 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Well, it took time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I guess the good news is how long it took Microsoft to kill it. They are not as good as they used to be with the FUD.

  2. It could all still change... by erroneus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...if it's rejected as an ISO standard, there is plenty of room for rejecting the present acceptance.

    But that said, I am admittedly ignorant of any appeals or reapplication processes that Microsoft would undoubtedly pay... err, uh attempt.

    Nutrasweet was rejected multiple time until the company that makes it put someone into the FDA office that would approve it. ("No, we reject it because it's poison... we reject it because it's poison... oh okay, we no longer 'feel' it's poison...") OOXML was rejected by two or three parties in a position to do so (depending on how you count them) until finally, Microsoft got someone in office that they could bend to their will.

    This is "competition in the market place?!" This is "innovation!?"

    I'd like to hear from Microsoft apologists why they think this is an ethical and acceptable way to do business.

  3. Small consolation and the silver lining ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ... is that, this scrape has raised the profile and visibility of the importance of document formats and vendor lock. Many people in power are now more aware of these issues.

    How much can MSFT charge for MS-Office? It can price it just a shade under what it would cost you to switch to an alternative. Your switching cost determines the money you need to pay to MSFT. If a company wants to lower the money it pays, it has to lower the switching costs. Slowly ODF will gain acceptance.

    Also the ODF proponents should realize that the total money collected by MSFT is just 40 billion dollars. I say just because, for the amount of money corporate America is spending, it is not much. For most companies their core operation is transportation or retail or selling insurance or whatever. Compared to the health insurance, labour costs, office building maintenance and rent, advertising expenses, the amount they spend on Office software is a pittance. As long as MSFT keeps prices that low, it is difficult for ODF to gain traction.

    The switch will be very very gradual initially. First companies for whom office software costs is a significant portion of their operating expenses. Then slowly it will spread to other companies. We should not expect any quick victories. Then once the alternative formats have gained enough critical mass, and the backward compatibility issues have become less of an issue, there would be quick upsurge for ODF. But still MSFT will have a significant market share in office software for a long time to come.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. "FUD" vs. Corruption by CarpetShark · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This can hardly be called FUD. They destroyed at least one man's career in government -- probably two mens'. Who knows what else they did to get this through, and head off a pan-american shift away from MS products.

  5. Report from Switzerland (Meeting of SNV/UK14) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just yesterday I was sitting in the relevant meeting of SNV/UK14 (http://www.snv.ch/), that decides how Switzerland will vote. The chairman (Hans-Rudolf Thomann) explained the following rules:
    - we are here to create standards, not to reject them
    - if we reach consensus (>=75%) to vote for Microsoft, we will vote for Microsoft
    - if we only reach a majority (>=50%) to vote for Microsoft, we will vote for Microsoft
    - if we reach a majority to vote against Microsoft, we will vote for Microsoft
    - if we reach consensus to vote against Microsoft, we will abstain

    The present spin doctors of Microsoft and ECMA managed to convince Mr. Thomann to reject every serious technical and general concern we had regarding OOMXL by pointing to compatibility reasons. At the end we had a majority _against_ Microsoft but which (giving the unfair rules) results in a Swiss vote _for_ Microsoft. Mr. Thomann was fretting and fuming at the end of the meeting how it can be that successful international companies (we had representatives from IBM, Google, ...) vote against the best interest of their customers and theirself!

    Yes, this is how the democratic system at SNV / ISO works. After the meeting I could not eat as much as I wanted to puke...

    Posted as AC for obvious reasons