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Microsoft Believes IBM Masterminded Anti-OOXML Initiative
mahuyar writes "Microsoft executives have accused IBM of leading the campaign against their initiative to have Office Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standardization. 'Nicos Tsilas, senior director of interoperability and IP policy at Microsoft, said that IBM and the likes of the Free Software Foundation have been lobbying governments to mandate the rival OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard to the exclusion of any other format. "They have made this a religious and highly political debate," Tsilas said. "They are doing this because it is advancing their business model. Over 50 percent of IBM's revenues come from consulting services."'"
Whether ODF is or not is quite besides the point. Microsoft has tried to make this about ODF vs. OOXML, when in fact it should be all about Microsoft's unimplementable file format (at least by a third party) and the dirty tricks that it has used in its attempts to get it ISO certification so it can try to sell Office as an "open standards"-based application suite to the increasing number of governments who want an open document format to assure long-term readability of documents.
Quite frankly I think that the very idea of someone submitting a protocol or file format to an international standards committee without one example of a third-party implementation is ludicrous.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You know how I know there's no God. Because if there was, a lightning bolt would come from the sky and blast this guy to smithereens.
I've agreed with many of your posts, but I can't agree here. I'm not saying there is a God, but I could see a God with a sense of humor keeping this guy around to make him laugh. I laughed myself to tears when I read this. With just a few tweaks, this could have been a good onion article.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
Anyhow, not that it matters, but the truth seems to be the latter. Several groups and entities were opposed to OOXML, including many FOSS organizations like the FSF. And also IBM. Given IBM's money, perhaps it acted more than the others, I have no idea. If IBM did anything underhanded or unethical, then that would be very wrong, regardless of the worthiness of the goal. But, as it happens, Microsoft was caught buying votes, not IBM, so these accusations of Microsoft's are just ridiculous.
Microsoft wanted a standard basically amounts to ISO certified vendor lock in. They wanted it because it supports their business model, which is getting paid for the standard office functionality installed on every computer on earth, forever.
IBM wanted a standard that allows them to mix and match their own office software, MS office software, or any other office software together as part of a larger solution based on their clients needs. They wanted it because it supports their business model, which is doing analysis of a specific businesses needs and helping them put together a complete information infrastructure.
The thing is, the reason the International Standards Body exists is to make IBMs business model practical and prevent companies from successfully operating with Microsofts business model. It doesn't do this because it has a business motive though. It does it because the people of the world value their autonomy enough to have united behind this goal.
So, basically, Microsoft are angrily accusing IBM of being good corporate citizens of the world in this particular regard.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
A specification 6000 pages long is probably another factor. Heck, try to get something that is spec compliant from a 100 page specification is hard enough, but with 6000 pages you must be smoking something good to even expect compliance. Good specs are easy to implement and understand, but then again I doubt Microsoft was even expecting anyone to be able to implement OOXML.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
All's fair in love & war. Sometimes business is like war. IBM was the Microsoft of its day. They've got a longer history of dirty tricks than just about anybody out there.
So how do you destroy a competitor, legally, soaking up goodwill from the programmer community all the while? Commodify your Competition's Product! Sun was pushing Java big-time for awhile. So why would IBM help it by funding Eclipse? Because by doing so, they commodify Java development environments, eliminating a potential revenue stream for Sun. Eclipse is a weapon against Sun! Why do you think they named it "Eclipse!?" What does an Eclipse do?
It's one thing to pull dirty tricks. It's another thing to be able to pull dirty tricks on the dirty tricksters. It's yet again another thing to do all that, and win the goodwill of the community at the same time! So, by opposing OOXML, IBM is hurting Microsoft, opening up a potential market for consulting services (There has been a fair bit of money to be made in automated document processing for government!) and winning kudos from us Open Source community to boot.
Bravo!
I did this because there is already a fully supported, open, non-patent-encumbered standard covering the whole domain of what ooxml proposes
False. ODF has the exact same sort of patent problems that OOXML does. In fact, ODF is in worse shape because Sun's IPR grant is only valid so long as Sun participates in the ODF committee.
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.php
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