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Study Touting OOXML Over ODF Is Debunked
The Burton Group, an IT research company, published a study urging that enterprise organizations adapt OOXML rather than ODF. Their reasons include things like "ODF is controlled indirectly by Sun," "MS Office is cheaper than OpenOffice.org," and "OOXML improved many problems of DOC." The Burton Group also claims that although ODF is well-designed, OOXML is better suited for the specific needs of enterprise organizations. The study claims to be impartial in that Microsoft didn't pay for it. Ars Technica now has up a pretty thorough debunking of the Burton study. Ars wonders how the Burton authors can so blithely overlook Microsoft's vote-buying in Sweden, while wielding unfounded accusations of chicanery in Sun's direction.
With claims such as "Sun indirectly controlling ODF" (as opposed to Microsoft directly controlling it) and "OpenOffice is more expensive" (free? wtf?), it doesn't sound like Ars Technica had too difficult of a job.
Ars wonders how the Burton authors can so blithely overlook Microsoft's vote-buying in Sweden, while wielding unfounded accusations of chicanery in Sun's direction.
Money, hookers or blow. Probably a combo of all three. Just a guess.
Je me fous du passé
Why is this topic still going on? I would think that everyone agrees that pdf is the better standard.
While I can't agree with this being a problem due to Sun's having influence over the development, I could perhaps understand it to be potentially a problem due to the indirect nature, in that there is no central guidance. Whereas with MS software there is, potentially, a focused development path (I'm not trying to be modded funny, honest).
Ummm...no. I...no. The costs involved in OO.o are only, I think, due to the training issues for staff familiarised with MS Office. And I don't think that the cost of training each user, with group seminars, would be more expensive than the per-user license for using MS Office in a corporate environment.
Ah, corporate shills. They're funny guys...
At first blush I wondered how Burton could get away with such absolutely ridiculous claims (OOo costs more than MS Word?!?! WTF??!!). But then I realized: the target of this report isn't going to be Slashdot readers, experienced sysadmins, or anyone similar - our collective knowledge can see the BS from a mile away, and some Slashdotters I know actually know enough of what they're talking about to debunk the report all by themselves. No, the intended audience is going to be those folks who may lack the IT knowledge but still control the purse strings (CEO, COO, CFO, et al). They don't know any better so it's going to be easy to fill their heads with FUD and have them take it as gospel. The data may be incorrect but, by the time anyone else find that out, the damage will have already been done.
This space for rent!
In the UK the Advertising Standards Authority governs advertising and, amongst other things, insists that it not be misleading.
If we can firm up the paid-for-by-M$ link that we can take M$ to task for breaking the rules. Can anyone prove the link ?
A shame that you can't access the original PDF report without a particularly invasive registration process. They could be sending that information on to terrorists groups looking for new recruits.
Broad accusations aside, I know Slashdot invented the 'RTFA' acronym, but it'd be nice if we could read the original without having to take Ars' word for it or having to reveal our company's annual revenue range. After badly mangling that Sony wireless USB thing, I'm not inclined to trust Ars without the primary source.
Not a typewriter
I personally prefer problems to be solved instead of improved. But obviously the Burton Group actually likes problems, but doesn't consider the problems of .DOC as good enough, so they are glad that OOXML contains them in an improved form.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
It informs me to add "The Burton Group" to the list of bullshit propaganda organizations. Seriously, who are these guys?
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
As I understand it, going from office-2003, to office-2007, requires more training than moving to OpenOffice.
BTW: I've worked in IT for 28 years. I never remember any company, spending any money, to train anybody, to learn any office product. I thought you supposed to pick that up by yourself.
I know everybody wants to immediately jump to the conclusion that the Burton Group is in Microsoft's pocket, etc., etc., but while it is perfectly appropriate to question the methodologies and motivations of analysts' research, in my experience the Burton Group is as much of a "good guy" as an analyst firm gets. If you've ever been to one of their conferences, they are packed to the gills with useful information, and their analysts generally come off as being genuinely knowledgeable.
... but for all I know, not having read the paper, the Burton Group never disputes that. Maybe they're just saying that anybody who insists on using ODF because Microsoft has a disproportionate influence over OOXML is fooling themselves, because the same can be said (to an extent) of ODF.
That said, I'd love to see the Burton Group get rid of the registration requirement on this PDF so I can see what they actually say. TFA is mostly paraphrasing, and I'm not certain they are taking every comment in context.
Some folks on here seem to be taking issue with the statement that ODF is "indirectly controlled" by Sun. But, as far as I understand it, that's pretty much the case. Last I heard, the vast majority of work on OpenOffice.org is done by Sun employees. The codebase is just too complex for amateurs to get their heads around. You could argue (and many do) that OOXML is directly controlled by Microsoft
The Burton Group's greater concern seems to be that Sun has a conflict of interest here. What is the purpose of ODF? Is it to empower users? Or is a means for Sun to erode the profitability of core Microsoft products? If the latter, does it make sense for a corporation to support it on that basis? Maybe you'd argue that it does make sense. Me, I'm not so sure.
As far as ODF "only supporting a fraction of what enterprises need," well, that's probably true. I doubt that ODF was ever designed to define a standard for everything that enterprise customers do with their office suites. Be that as it may, if an ODF application suite does not support all of the features that an enterprise might want, does it make sense to conduct a mass migration to a new office suite on the basis that the new suite uses document formats that are "open"? In other words, the Burton Group seems to be making the age-old case for sticking with the status quo, even given the understanding that it represents a capitulation to "vendor lock-in." Many customers may decided that open file formats just aren't worth the trade-off.
You can call it cynical, or self-interested, or just plain lazy, but given the opportunity to participate in a revolution, there will always be some people who will say, "No thanks." Some of them might be deluded. And others may merely be acting in their own self-interest. If they are deluded, however -- and sticking with the status quo really means trading long-term best interests for short-term interests -- then isn't it up to us to convince them of their mistake? Calling them "shills," claiming that they were paid off in "hookers and blow," and all the other stuff I see in this thread, doesn't strike me as a very effective way of making the counter-argument.
Nor, in fact, does the Ars article. It doesn't seem like a "thorough debunking" to me; more like a fairly well-reasoned opinion piece/editorial/blog.
Breakfast served all day!
Thats true, you do generally have to pick it up yourself. The cost comes in the form of lost productivity from all the time you spend trying to figure out how to do new stuff or why something doesnt work the way you think it should.
Burton claims that they never got money from msft. Burton could be lying, but I think it's just as likely that Burton is being honest about that.
I think that most consulting companies don't like disruptive f/oss stuff. Maybe Burton has a good releationship with msft, and likes the status quo. Maybe Burton hopes to do more business with msft, or msft partners in the future?
The OOXML specification refers to other specifications which are closed - i.e. "do this the same way it's done in Windows-95." Also, OOXML standard is to be controlled by a msft proxie group - ECMA.
Absolutely, one of them strives to provide a format useful and usable by any maker of office software, the other strives to provide a format useful and usable by any maker of office software, so long as it's Microsoft.
Almost exactly the same.
Agree 1000%. It's just a schema! I mean who cares what it does or where it comes from. I say the same about books, too. My literature prof wanted to fail me because I read Mein Kampf instead of War and Peace, but I was all like, dude, what's the problem? They're both books!
Word! How come we keep getting our shorts in a knot about who controls our information? Next thing you know, some shirty, smelly little ACLU pinko is going to come along and start complaining about access to information and whining about data interchange and what will our grand-children say about us when they see the mess we made of everything just so we could keep some corporate fat cat in his limo for another few years!
Who needs this Open shit, anyways, huh? Sharing? Highly over-rated.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
"ODF is controlled indirectly by Sun,"
Oh, and who controls OOXML? Someone you trust more than Sun?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Here's a hypothetical. You upgrade 300 workstations to the latest version of Office. Your employees spend the whole day after the upgrade just figuring out the new software. That's a man-year of productivity lost.
Even though you haven't budgeted anything for formal training, you've just paid your employees some number of tens of thousands of dollars to train themselves.
And in reality, it probably takes most people more than 8 hours of experience with an application to get up to full speed.
Not necessarily. There's a lot of companies out there, including Burton, who are MS "partners", and earn all their income by pushing and supporting MS products. They don't need to be explicitly paid off to spout pro-MS FUD; they stand to profit through increased use of MS software, so they're happy to spout FUD for free.
For instance, if McAfee published a report that said that Linux and MacOSX are highly susceptible to viruses, and that virus infestations of such machines are common, it'd be pretty obvious that they didn't need to be paid off by MS to say these lies. Their entire reason for existence is the poor security and virus susceptibility of the Windows platform, so it's in their best interest to make people believe Windows is the best platform, and that every computer should have anti-virus software installed.
I'm surprised that the authors don't expect to get laughed out of the hall when they present this report -- even if it is on Microsoft soil.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
OOXML, on the other hand, is just a (rather grotty) documentaion of the format that MS back-ended onto Office 2007 (it's not even the default format) ssssssssssssss -- and even though Microsoft claims control of the format, they're not even willing to bind themselves to use it in the future.
This is a really clear case of the coal calling the steel black. (not even the pot calling the kettle).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Frankly, though, I'm skeptical that he is who he says he is.
Think green.
1) OOXML is not open, ODF is open. OOXML specs refer to other closed specs.
2) ODF is controlled by ISO, OOXML is controlled by msft, and msft *now* claims that msft will never give ISO control. Rather msft wants to give control to the ECMA - a group controlled by msft. This directly contradicts what msft first promised.
3) ODF is used by several different organizations. Anybody is welcome to freely use ODF. OOXML is used by msft, and novell - due to a very sneaky and secretive document.
4) OOXML is only being considered for an ISO standard because of msft bribing and ballot stuffing.
In my book debunking means looking at someone's statement. And then methodically showing that it's not true. This can be done by showing the truth is different, or showing that the reasoning is flawed.
This article IMHO just stated that things are different, but does not provide a better founded truth, nor does it show the flaws in the original reasoning in a methodical way (again it's just stating the opposite).
I would not call this debunking, I would call it disputing.
My 2 cents...