Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Accuses Google Docs of Data Infidelity
Hugh Pickens writes "For years Google has been pitching migrations from Microsoft Office to Google Docs, arguing that Docs makes Office 2003 and 2007 better because users can store Microsoft Office documents in Google's cloud and share them in their original format. Now eWeek reports that Alex Payne, director of Microsoft's online product management team, says that moving files created with Office to Google Docs results in the loss of data fidelity, including the loss of such data components as charts, styles, watermarks, fonts, tracked changes, and SmartArt. 'They are claiming that an organization can use both seamlessly,' Payne writes. 'This just isn't the case.' Meanwhile, Google defended its original 'Docs makes Office better' in a statement, noting that it has made a lot of improvements to the web editors in Docs with its recent refresh, and promising that functionality will only get better as Google integrates the DocVerse assets into Docs. 'It says a lot about Microsoft's approach to customer lock-in that the company touts its proprietary document formats, which only Microsoft software can render with true fidelity, as the reason to avoid using other products,' says a Google spokesperson."
Even while the file formats are open now
Really? Please point me to the relevant reference for the Office 2007 file format. And don't even think about saying anything related to OOXML because its not even close.
I see students failing papers because the Word on one machine does not read word files created on another machine in a different version.
And this is why my resume is in PDF format.
Why would Google mine the data when it doesn't serve ads on Premier Apps (that's the kind businesses use, FYI) unless the customer specifically requests it? I've read the ToS, and it doesn't mention mining data AFAICT.
7.1 Obligations. Each party will: (a) protect the other party’s Confidential Information with the same standard of care it uses to protect its own Confidential Information; and (b) not disclose the Confidential Information, except to affiliates, employees and agents who need to know it and who have agreed in writing to keep it confidential. Each party (and any affiliates, employees and agents to whom it has disclosed Confidential Information) may use Confidential Information only to exercise rights and fulfill obligations under this Agreement, while using reasonable care to protect it. Each party is responsible for any actions of its affiliates, employees and agents in violation of this Section.
...
8.1 Intellectual Property Rights. Except as expressly set forth herein, this Agreement does not grant either party any rights, implied or otherwise, to the other’s content or any of the other’s intellectual property. As between the parties, Customer owns all Intellectual Property Rights in Customer Data, and Google owns all Intellectual Property Rights in the Services.
Where are you getting this information of yours?
Put identity in the browser.
Amusingly, the Technet blog entry has text marked as "Calibri" font, with no alternatives. Calibri is a Microsoft-only font that comes with Vista. So non-Vista systems render the text in Times Roman. Calibri is a sans-serif font, and all the other fonts in that Wordpress theme are sans-serif, so the page looks awful.
Now that font downloading works in essentially all the current browsers, that's not necessary, at least if you stick to public-domain fonts. However, there aren't many public-domain fonts that don't suck at small type sizes. (Here's a page of mine with some downloaded fonts.) If you have anti-aliasing on, it looks OK; if not, the text font looks ugly. Interestingly, Linux and Macs do anti-aliasing routinely, but older Windows systems do not.
Google Docs has the same problem. Currently, it works like classic HTML; if you have the font locally, you can use it, but if not, you get some default. The stock fonts in Google Docs are the lowest common denominator: "Normal", "Normal/Serif", "Courier New", "Trebuchet", and "Verdana". If Google is going to make a big push on competing with Word, they need to do better than that. Google could make progress on this by buying twenty or so really good body fonts outright from a major font foundry, and setting them up for download on demand for Google Docs.
First of all, the DOC format (the original Word formats) are not open, only DOCX are somewhat open. The problems are in: charts, styles, watermarks, fonts, tracked changes, and SmartArt.
Charts, watermarks, tracked changes and SmartArt are not open/documented in the OOXML formats. Styles and fonts are usually converted pretty well unless the document is generated by MS Office because then it isn't according to spec anymore.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
except if your paying attention MSFT doesn't actually use those documented features, and instead use an older version.
OOXML that ISO passed is different from the OOXML produced by office 2007 and 2010.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Nothing could be further from the truth. MS products are generally terrible for the creation of collaborative, complex, non-technical documents. It's just that organisations are for the most part incurious and unwilling to depart from the well-trodden path.
This isn't exclusively Microsoft's fault. Almost without exception[*], WYSIWYG editors suck.
This is just another example of a phenomenon that remain inscrutable to hackers and geeks the world over. Generally speaking, people are incurious. They don't particularly care about the best or even the right way to do something. In fact, as long as they create the surface impression of having done something (e.g. using Word to create an unparseable, ungodly hodge-podge of visual formatting and calling it a 'complex document'), they're generally satisfied to let things lie.
Of course, this is the fundamental principle that animates the Dilbert universe and makes it the serio-comic tragedy that it is.
--------------
[*] I only say 'almost' because I'm willing to admit that in some parallel universe, some Leonardo of the keyboard might conceivably have invented a WYSIWYG word processor that actually does an adequate job at non-trivial tasks. In that same alternate universe, however, I can skate across a giant butter lake wearing a frilly orange tutu, then mount my flying unicorn and float away over cotton-candy clouds to my home in an enchanted toadstool.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.