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."

Comments

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[DavidR1991]

That's because the formats are 'open' in the sense that they are poorly documented and difficult to implement. Opening your formats is one thing - assisting others to actively achieve interoperability is another

Web Based Document Editing

[fatwilbur]

Well, if true, I guess you could count my (rather large) organization as one that would never used Google Docs. Tracking changes alone is a feature used extensively by our business departments.

I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version). If you've ever worked for any type of large business lately, word processing is WAY past the basic formatting options I've seen in any online suite.

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if true, I guess you could count my (rather large) organization as one that would never used Google Docs. Tracking changes alone is a feature used extensively by our business departments.

I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version). If you've ever worked for any type of large business lately, word processing is WAY past the basic formatting options I've seen in any online suite.

Change tracking in the current Google Docs seems more than sufficient as you can see each change a user made in a timeline and choose to revert to any point in the timeline. You even get to do comments and such very similar to MS Word. In the end Microsoft intentionally doesn't play well with others so that they can continue to lock people into one forced solution. This is typical business strategy and can't be argued. They have done this for years with IE as well as hold the web back as a result.

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[Dragoniz3r]

I don't know what sort of an organization you work for, but you mention that your business departments use change tracking a lot. What about your other departments? Obviously Google Docs isn't for everyone, but I'd be more than a little surprised if the majority of your organization needed that feature, and I know for sure that my (also rather large) company doesn't (as a whole).

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[LordThyGod]

Mabye in your world, but in our office, we've yet to hit something Google docs is not good enough at. And the ease of sharing documents, and collaborating vs MS tools is light years ahead. No contest. MS Office is too desktop bound to be useful in all situations.

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[dangitman]

I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version).

Have you heard of this thing called the World Wide Web? It is a web-based document system that has quite a few more users than MS Office does. It's even available on the internet!

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[dangitman]

First one has to ask why one "rather large" organization would even entrust it's confidential documents in the first place to another rather large organization which makes its living based solely on the looking at the contents of one's emails, searches, web browsing habits and documents just to deliver advertising.

They don't do this when you get a corporate or institutional account with Google. The company/university pays for the services, and there is no advertising or data-mining.

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[InfoJunkie777]

Well, if true, I guess you could count my (rather large) organization as one that would never used Google Docs. Tracking changes alone is a feature used extensively by our business departments. I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version). If you've ever worked for any type of large business lately, word processing is WAY past the basic formatting options I've seen in any online suite.

If that is so, why is MS itself releasing a stripped-down version of MS Office 2010 FREE on their cloud (presumably to compete with Google)?

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect the issue is preservation of "change tracking" metadata between Docs and Word, rather than change tracking in Docs, or change tracking in Word.

I further suspect that this is a difficult thing because(in addition to probably being crufty, complex, and not as well documented as it might be), "change tracking" is partially a strictly technical problem, and partly a UI/design philosophy problem. It would be, by no means, a surprise to learn that Word and Docs have distinct approaches that simply may not be fully commensurate with one another.

Consider the analogy of programs/UIs that are basically folder hierarchy based, vs. programs/UIs that are basically metadata "tag" based. There are some basic technical challenges you would run into if you wanted to make one approach play nicely with the other(ie. parsing the metadata properly); but most of your challenges would be more about stylistic decisions concerning how best to bodge one style into the other's conventions. Should you parse the metadata and create "virtual folders" that echo a sensible folder hierarchy organization of those files? If you have a hierarchical folder tree, how best to turn that information into meaningful tags?, etc.

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

releasing a stripped-down version

...

You basically answered your own question or, at least, gave the seed of the answer. Microsoft, (largely correctly), sees enterprises and organizations with complex requirements and/or a substantial Office-based legacy stack as being substantially locked in. This is why enterprise versions of Office cost as much, per seat, as they do, and why Microsoft's answer to the demand for better networked collaboration at the enterprise level is basically "It's SharePoint, and yup, that'll cost you, or nothing, bitches." For some of these outfits, pretty much any program that isn't feature-for-feature compatible(including binary compatibility with plugins and macros and stuff) just isn't going to cut it, Google certainly won't.

However, enterprises in that situation are by no means the entire market. For other market segments, Google has a dangerously appealing product(in my observations of nontechnical users, for instance, they find that having their documents "just there" wherever they sit down to be a revelation. Unless you are an office drone somewhere where IT has dumped serious time and effort into making it all magically work, or your techie nephew spent the afternoon playing with Dropbox or something on all the computers you use, you don't get that with Office, even if you pay for one of the fancy versions). Further, the history of technology is littered with admittedly superior technologies that were gradually eaten from below by their "definitely not as good; but a lot cheaper/more versatile" competitors. Given that, at one point, MS was one of those competitors, they probably know this lesson.

If Google gets a viable toehold in these easier markets, this gives them plenty of time to gradually evolve their way up, picking off whatever targets happen to be softest at the time. If their document fidelity isn't good enough now, it'll probably be a bit better next year, and a bit better the year after that. Since software costs basically nothing to reproduce, the larger your audience, the cheaper (per customer) implementing a feature or improvement is.

There is probably a secondary reason as well. Even if Google's Docs ends up being a dead end, and gets quietly put on life support, and relegated to light list-making duties forever, the general lesson that people want better networked collaboration is inescapable. Microsoft will want to deliver that(though they will probably prefer to do it with an installed Office version and SharePoint Server, and fat licence fees for both). Rolling out a web-based Office 2010, cheapskate edition, allows them to test and refine their interfaces, models, and ways of doing things for distributed collaboration. Since the users won't be paying customers, they will be able to take some risks with them(and, if dissatisfaction arises, letting the message be "Oh, the web version is feature limited by design. Upgrade to Office 2010 for the Full Office Experience.") and figure out what they want future iterations of their enterprise collaboration stuff to feel like.

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[zippthorne]

...If you've ever worked for any type of large business lately, word processing is WAY past the basic formatting options I've seen in any online suite.

If a significant fraction of the employees in your large business are wasting time on fancy formatting options, you're going to find yourself using the phrase "too big to fail" sometime in your future. Specialization is good for your business, and the fanciest needs really fall under the auspices of marketing. Let them take care of it using real tools (page layout software, for instance).

Don't settle for every secretary, intern, and team member in the company spending 28 hours each week churning over which fancy formatting options make the minutes of the other 12 hours of meetings look the best.

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[stephanruby]

Well, if true, I guess you could count my (rather large) organization as one that would never used Google Docs. Tracking changes alone is a feature used extensively by our business departments.

Well, I think you will prefer Google Docs/Spreadsheets then. With Google Docs/Spreadsheet, revision tracking is turned on by default. Google Docs / Spreadsheets is really a collaborative platform built from the ground up.

You'll just have to be careful when you import any ongoing existing Word/Excel documents into Google Docs. It's only the importing process that will lose that info. After that, Google Docs/Google Spreadsheets will track any changes that are made within it.

And if you're really worried about losing existing tracking information, or having to maintain a large backup of old Word/Excel files separately (which you should have anyway), then don't migrate to Google Docs / Spreadsheets, and don't even migrate to any new versions of Microsoft Word or Excel. I really doubt that Microsoft's own converters between different major releases are even that smart, that they will retain that meta information during the conversion process.

That guy's online offering obviously will, otherwise, he wouldn't be bragging about it right now, but I really doubt this type of feature was working that well in the past, or that it will continue to work that smoothly in the future. Converting Word Documents between major versions was never an elegant process. In my case at least, it always seemed to lose my original formatting (and god only knows how many other things it lost, that were not immediately visible to me at the time).

Re:Web Based Document Editing

[dangitman]

I think the intended contrast was between entrusting your documents to large corporations or entrusting your documents to your own solution (developed in-house or purchased) that runs on equipment you administer and fully control.

Realistically, how many companies do that? Most companies use Microsoft Office, which they don't fully control. And most companies use outsourced servers, services, pretty much everything. A company that rolls all of its own technology is basically wasting resources.

But is this a real usage scenario?

[Dragoniz3r]

On the one hand, it seems anyone who's ever used a computer before in their life would half-way expect this sort of incompatibility to arise, given the drastically different natures of Google Docs and Office (Web based vs standalone app).

On the other hand, how often do the people Google is trying to cater to actually use these features? Google Docs has always struck me as a quick and easy way to get Word documents from anywhere. And I've gotta say, not many of my office reports use fancy styles, or SmartArt. Charts occasionally, yes, but the rest of those items just strike me as "meh" and SmartArt particularly strikes me as "yeah, that was cool when I was seven."

I dunno. It just doesn't seem to me like this is going to be a problem in common usage.

Re:But is this a real usage scenario?

[kelanden]

On the one hand, it seems anyone who's ever used a computer before in their life would half-way expect this sort of incompatibility to arise, given the drastically different natures of Google Docs and Office (Web based vs standalone app).

Lowering your expectations is a great way to ensure the underlying problem is never addressed . The fact that we still don't have dependable multi-vendor support for some of the world's most common document interchange formats over 15 years after they were first introduced is a bit sad, don't you think?

Google Docs has always struck me as a quick and easy way to get Word documents from anywhere.

Even if you only use Docs as a distribution system, its unreliable import / export conversion can be infuriating. Things as simple as line spacing or paragraph indentation frequently get broken, and I've yet to see an embedded object that didn't get converted to an uneditable image or just dropped without any notification. Exporting from Docs can easily reduce a professional looking document to careless looking garbage.

On the other hand, how often do the people Google is trying to cater to actually use these features? [...] And I've gotta say, not many of my office reports use fancy styles, or SmartArt. Charts occasionally, yes, but the rest of those items just strike me as "meh" and SmartArt particularly strikes me as "yeah, that was cool when I was seven."

SmartArt might be dispensable, but decent styles support is essential for all but the shortest and simplest of documents. Without it, anything but flat text quickly turns into an manageable soup of conflicting format attributes.

I dunno. It just doesn't seem to me like this is going to be a problem in common usage.

The fact that many large organizations are passing over Google Docs in favor of continued dependence on Microsoft's offerings is evidence to the contrary.

Re:But is this a real usage scenario?

[kurt555gs]

I have found Google Docs is very true to Open Office format reproduction. The problem isn't Google Docs. It is M$'s sneaky secret, proprietary format. Switch to Open Office for your primary word processor and there will be no problem!

What fidelity

[fermion]

It really is quite amazing that vendor lock in would be the defense. I stopped using MS Word because it would not read my old files accurately. I see students failing papers because the Word on one machine does not read word files created on another machine in a different version. Rather than automatically updating MS Word from MS servers, there is a complex process on has to go through to read files from different versions. It would be nice if they had an online tool to switch versions. At least with Google you are never going to be in a case where you fail a class or lose a contract because you the software won't read the document. Sure they may be data loss, but what is worse. A few mangled graphs, or no product what so ever?

The unfortunate thing is that teachers and professors all see the student issues due to the failure of the MS products, yet continue to insist on their use, blaming it on the incompetency of the students rather than the incompetency of MS.

MS products are good in firms that have the resources to insure all machines are homogeneous and up to date, firms that require a high level of collaborations of complex non-technical documents(This does not include most educational places). Otherwise, at least for documents, OO.org, Google docs, or LaTeX should be the norm. For spreadsheets OO.org, and especially Google, has some stuff lacking. For presentations, I think everything but Keynote pretty much sucks.

Re:What fidelity

[grcumb]

MS products are good in firms that have the resources to insure all machines are homogeneous and up to date, firms that require a high level of collaborations of complex non-technical documents(This does not include most educational places).

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.

Re:What fidelity

[kramerd]

I see students failing papers because the Word on one machine does not read word files created on another machine in a different version.

I'm calling bullshit.

The specified format that teachers/professors use is generally the format that the on campus computers use (if you are in high school, the format is printed, not electronic), so if you are a student, you have access to write your paper, save it in the appropriate format, and electronically convey it to the professor using your school email address. Or if you live off campus, you can write in the format of choice, send to your school email address, show up on campus, convert it from the text, and send it to your professor through email. Other teachers use turnitin or some other web based service that formats text for the recipient automatically. If you are taking online classes, the format for papers will be specified, and it is the student's fault, not Word, for failure to adhere to it.

As for using googledocs for a paper, if it has graphic requirements (charts, analysis, specified formating), the student can and should be penalized for not adhering to the requirements. This makes googledocs a non-solution. Think of it as training for the real world. If your boss wants a one page, double spaced, times new roman, 11 font summary of what you did this month, you damn better well not be surprised when you get fired for turning in a 4 page email complaint about how you wanted to use googledocs instead of wasting paper.

  The unfortunate thing is that you want to blame Word for your personal failures.

Re:What fidelity

[grcumb]

I'm not sure it's a matter of being incurious.

You would be if you'd were curious enough to consider the issue a little more. 8^)

These products have reached a certain critical mass, where a business analyst from Company A can easily integrate into Company B's workflow without too much training.

'Critical mass' is exactly my point. Companies A & B call their awkward, borderline anarchic process of batting emails and Word attachments back and forth a 'Workflow'. And to some degree they're right. But they never consider how else the information exchange could happen. They don't have to, because nobody else does, either.

Efficiency or appropriateness are not important. Word isn't the tool of choice because it's Good. It's not the tool of choice at all. It's just What We Use.

And that, children, is why geeks inevitably find themselves at odds with most of humanity: They simply cannot comprehend why someone would choose to continue polishing turds when there's so much else that could be done.

And they're fools, because they think there's a choice involved, when in fact what's important to most people is that no-one ever be forced to choose.

Err right?

[Adambomb]

So this basically just states that Google Doc's data fidelity is only as good as Google makes it. So the only question businesses have is "Are Googles data fidelity policies better maintained than our own".

If yes, use it, if no, stay internal.

What Microsoft has to do with that question other than warping the question into an assumption to fear i sure dont know.

Re:Err right?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you're going to be a grammar troll you could at least be right. Policies is the subject in the second sentence and it's plural, are is correct.

Re:Err right?

[greentshirt]

You fail at being a Grammar Nazi.

You begin by launching a colon without satisfying the grammatical prerequisites: A colon must always be preceded by a complete sentence. You followed that up with another neat trick: You inexplicably added phantom periods into some of your quotes. Periods are people too, and I’m sure they would be rather annoyed at being dragged into quotes they have no business being in. Moving along, it is also incorrect to capitalize the first word after a colon unless the word is a proper noun, or it is the first word in a complete sentence.

You'll be interested to know that you fail at using semicolons, too; semicolons must be preceded and followed by complete sentences.

Finally, your third sentence sounds like something out of a third-grader's journal, you might want to add a "there" in there.

You should probably focus less on correcting the zomg-grammars-of-the-internets, and more on solidifying your grammatical command.

A good day to both you and your horse, sir.

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[LordThyGod]

Open formats? From MS. That's a paradocs! They can't even faithfully render some older versions of their own stuff accurately.

PDF?

[toastar]

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.

Re:PDF?

[Anonymous Coward]

This also works as a good filter for companies I wouldnt want to work for; if they ask you to re-send in .doc format you probably dont want to work there anyway

Re:PDF?

[grcumb]

Employers aren't interested in your ideologies. When they are paying you, they expect you to stay within the bounds of your job description and your interests should be put aside and the company's interests should come to the fore.

I love the way the term 'ideology' is used to co-opt the debate.

There are correct uses of the term, of course. But in this example, it means, "I don't care if you're right and I'm wrong. I'm paying you to do your job my way, so shut up and do it."

In any area of business, this makes the employee exactly as smart -or as stupid- as the boss. Statistically speaking, therefore, it's a stupid approach.

Let's be clear, though: Here on Slashdot, 'Ideology' is really just code for FOSS and the principle that there is indeed a Right Tool For The Job, but that tool isn't always the most expedient. 'Ideology', therefore, sometimes means more work and potentially delayed gratification.

Of course, sometimes it means the opposite. Sometimes it means, 'quit floundering about using third-rate tools. Apply a little original thought for once in your life and accept that there are better ways to get things done.'

The wise boss knows about the risks on both sides of this equation and remains open to persuasion (though appropriately skeptical). The unwise boss, labels every thought not originating between his ears 'ideology' and ignores it.

Yah, right, whatever...

[inode_buddha]

Because you know damn well that the moment Google Docs achieved true fidelity with MS Docs, then MS would turn around and change the specs again, thereby breaking fidelity...

Re:Seriously?

[LordThyGod]

Microsoft's approach involves selling software and client retention.

No, their approach involves getting a monopoly on something by hook or by crook then keeping the riff raff out. The only markets they make significant money on, are the monopolies.

Grasping at straws

[HangingChad]

Wow, Microsoft is really digging deep on that one. I don't have any problems tracking document changes. We use the strike-through and different colored text for each contributor. So I know at a glance who changed what.

If you need legal change tracking, you're not going to be using web-based software anyway. Besides, if there's a big call for that feature, I bet Google can figure out how to supply it.

I think the days of desktop software are winding down. Google can be far more nimble with Docs than MSFT can be with Office. And the features that the MS guy mentioned, only small minority of users find those at all useful.

Taking a swipe at Google just informed thousands people that you can move .docs around with GoogleDocs. Doesn't seem real bright.

Re:Seriously?

[selven]

Microsoft's approach involves client retention. Okay, fine. But the way they're going about doing it - making it nearly impossible to write an application compatible with their formats - is anticompetitive and very evil.

And the car analogy simply does not hold. Image files are standardized, and I can expect a .png made in Photoshop to still look the same in GIMP or MS Paint. Sound formats are the same. Even for formatted text, there exists the completely open ODF format. MS's actions in making a format so closed and proprietary that often even different versions of their own software show the same file differently are simply inexcusable.

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[Snaller]

"Uh, if Google cannot make their Docs applications compatible with Office formats, how is it Microsoft's fault?"

Because they keep everything a secret - thats been their way of destroying opposition.

Re:Seriously?

[Daengbo]

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?

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[dangitman]

Google has too many half-assed projects it cannot or doesn't fully support.

So, exactly the same as Microsoft, then?

Technet can't get fonts right

[Animats]

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.

Re:Technet can't get fonts right

[RobertM1968]

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.

Or, they could go the way of Arial and just make up their own set of fonts that are close enough to the popular Microsoft ones. It would be kind of playing dirty, but who knows if Google's typeface creators could come up with some stuff that's better than what Microsoft has.

Better than Comic Sans? You're insane!!! ;-)

Bad Uploads

[hhawk]

When you open a DOCX or DOC file in Google Docs it converts them and Google Docs doesn't have the same functionality either.

But in terms of the data, it's not Google's fault that MS hasn't created an open standard for the document files..

MS wants recognition for their effort

[Arancaytar]

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.

... and it took the Office team months of hard work to achieve that.

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[Mortlath]

Microsoft has documented all the binary and XML file formats used by office: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313118(office.12).aspx

Google has a point

[SmallFurryCreature]

This just goes to show that when you use Microsofts software, you are locked to using their products and their products only. Because the format is closed, other parties will always be playing catchup and can never guarantee 100% compatibility. So Googles snarky comment at the end reveals just how lethal lock-in can be. You are locked in, with no way out.

I can understand that you might resent loosing data in a migration or usage of another tool, but put the blame FIRST with Microsoft and THEN with yourself for having allowed yourself to get locked in.

In any other part of your business, you would avoid lock-in at all costs. Would you tolerate that your floors could only be provided by ONE company and that it means no body else can put in a carpet without it breaking gravity? Would you allow your truck fleet to be provided by only ONE company and have that company know it? A common trick in the trucking branch is when it is time to place a new order is to invite the truck company to your place of business and have a few rival trucks parked in sight. Just a hint that you and the sales rep know there is competition out there.

In IT? You happily invite the MS guy to give you a new deal in your all MS office that can only deal with MS formats... yeah. What is the word in the sales rep mind? Bonus? Sucker?

Governments do this all the time, they give their divisions rules that they must buy from a supplier who has won the bid. And gosh, once they have the bid for the next couple of years, service just goes out of the window. How surprising. Especially when you just know that the quality of service under the previous contract will play no role whatsoever under the new bidding round. Ever wonder why government often does so badly in efficiency? They think lock-in is a GOOD thing. You know how you get good service from a supplier? Make him sweat as to whether your next order will be going to him. It is how the game is played.

Really, take a long hard look at your own company. How certain are you that you can access your own info without aid from a third party? A paper archive is easy. No matter who supplies the binders, you can read it. Tape drives? How certain are you they continue to be compatible? Are your records required by law actually readable? Can you afford to ditch a supplier who doesn't make business sense anymore? Can you get the best deal if the supplier knows you need him?

Why do you think MS sells Windows for ever higher prices? They know they got you by the short and curlies.

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[guruevi]

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.

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[peragrin]

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.

Microsoft Google???

[Helldesk Hound]

This is rich! Microsoft's software has the poorest interoperability capability of all Office Productivity suites.

Why should MS bitch about this when it's own software cannot even open basic documents created in other office productivity suites?

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

"Uh, if Google cannot make their Docs applications compatible with Office formats, how is it Microsoft's fault?"

Because they keep everything a secret - thats been their way of destroying opposition.

Logic fail.

If I slept with your wife and keep that a secret from you, that secrecy isn't why you can't give her an orgasm.

In the same line of thought, if you sleep with my wife and keep it a secret from me, that secrecy isn't why you can't give her an orgasm either.

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[J Story]

Google's Spreadsheet product is actually in some respects superior to Microsoft's. Yes, it doesn't do data pivots or indents (crucial for accounting layouts), but it's integrated with (online, natch) forms and search. I haven't had much call to use Google's "word", but fire up the spreadsheets daily. In the long run, however, I think that Microsoft has hooped itself by valuing customer lock-in over actual innovation. Google will continue to improve its "office" offering, becoming "good enough" for more and more applications.

Google should make an ad out of this!

[AlgorithMan]

When Microsoft badmouths a rival product, then you know it must be really good...

Google should make an ad out of this, really
"Would Microsoft badmouth Google Docs, if it wasn't really great?"

Re:Not quite.

[VinylPusher]

If the format was just slightly difficult to understand, one person would have figured it out. If it was quite difficult, a team of people would have figured it out.

That several teams, talented individuals and the combined power of the internets haven't figured out how to fully and correctly render a fairly simple .doc file, that speaks volumes for the format's obfuscation.

Re:Google vs Microsoft

[J Story]

Yes, it is a valid point that data can potentially be locked into Google's universe. However, Google have set up a website, http://www.dataliberation.org/ to help move data in and out of its products. Not perfect, perhaps, but certainly not Microsoft.

My dis am bigger

[tepples]

The use of generic terms after abbreviations, often called "RAS syndrome" is useful for distinguishing Automated Teller Machine from Asynchronous Transfer Mode or Portable Document Format from Probability Density Function.