Because most people who don't know jack about the real world of IT - like the parent poster - have nothing but contempt for real technology workers.
If you are not going to go into management, at least get out of IT. The parent post was probably written by a 12 year old troll, but it epitomizes the PHB attitude towards technology workers.
Perception counts more than reality. IT workers are seen as idiot savants who you tolerate until you can replace them with even lower paid offshore labor. IT workers are the dogs you kick around. I see ads for IT workers where they ask for college, and experience, for jobs that pay less than menial labor jobs.
Management are seen as creative leaders. Managers have insight, managers are loyal, and responsible. IT workers are more like janitors. Managers have careers, programmers and admins have jobs - often temporary jobs.
Managers work 9 to 5 at best. They don't get called at 3 am to come in and work another 5 hours for free. Managers get offices, promotions, bonuses, and other perks. Managers don't have to spend all of their free time learning another language, or some other technology.
Practically any managerial experience is transferable to practically any other managerial job. If an IT worker has experience with an unpopular product, that experience counts for nothing. And in IT, it's all about the products. Looks at ads for an tech jobs: long lists of products (I have seen over 30 listed for some jobs). And IT workers have to have 5 years experience with each product listed - and it has to be exact - Solaris experience typically will not get you job in an AIX shop. In IT, it seems like practically every job ad you will ever find has at least one product that you don't have experience with, i.e. websphere, weblogic, j2ee, tivoli, citrix, voip, openview, veritas, oracle, java, perl, php, ldap, etc.
Management is just a better career path. Do you see many MBA jobs being offshored?
> I've been an IT manager at several companies and I find that a degree is unnecessary; good management skills are necessary.
Maybe. But people who have paid their dues going to college may feel insulted to be led by a high-school graduate. And these days, they are asking for bachelor degrees for $16/hr PC-Techs and web-designers. If you have 20 years experience, and the people you manage are fresh out of college you may get away with that - maybe.
If I were hiring an IT manager, I doubt I would consider somebody without a four-year degree, at least. In today's market, an ad on craigslist would get me 400 qualified managers who have degrees.
JMHO. But this is a very difficult market all around. When you apply for a managerial job, you are going to be asked: 1) How many people did you supervise? 2) What size budgets did you manage?
Of course, you can always exagerate, to some extent. But, the very worst thing you can do is get caught lying, or even exagerating. Saying you were the CIO of a three person company with $42K in total revenue, will make you look silly.
In this market, unless you have stellar credentials, including extensive experience in management, working your way is about the only way.
"Sun bought some x86 drivers from SCOX outright so they could open up Solaris."
Nobody other than Sun apologists beleive that. Interesting timing wasn't it? Sun never needed those drivers before. Why is that at the exact moment that scox files the bogus lawsuit, and msft gives all that money to the scox scam, only then does sun needs all these drivers? Who are you kidding?
"McNealy made the comment because of a deal Sun made with AT&T ages ago that gave them rights as good as ownership over all the code SCOX was claiming linux infringes on. McNealy was also a jerk."
McNealy made those comments directly after scox "allowed" sun to distribute Linux. McNeally also parroted McBride often word-for-word.
"And as for IBM's contributions... any idiot can sponsor a couple engineers to work on a project that sells their hardware."
Um, IBM's contributions to Linux are generally valued around $1 billion. IBM is also spending much more money fighting the scox-scam than it would have cost IBM to have bought the company.
"Sun is the only company so far to take their previously closed source flagship products ( all of them. Java, SPARC, and Solaris ) and give them to the F/LOSS community"
Not quite. OpenSolaris is not Solaris, and I don't think Java is fully open. Although, I will acknowledge that sun has made substantial contributions to f/oss. Still, the IBM bashing post is ridiculous. IBM has done a lot for f/oss. IBM can not legally open source OS/2 - so what? At least IBM was never in bed with scox.
"It shop class, should the teacher teach the student about the concept of a screwdriver because the teacher doesn't want to be tied to a specific flat-head screwdriver"
I am sorry, but that is an absurdly weak analogy. Using one vendor's screw driver, over another, does not teach students that only one vendor does things the correct way. One screw driver is used just like another.
"Microsoft is basically giving away licenses to schools so students can learn. Why is this so bad?"
It is not so bad. But schools, and especially students, would be much better served if they taught vendor-neutral concepts, instead of working to increase msft's illegal stranglehold on all IT standards. Especially since locking students into the msft-only mindset does not save the schools even one thin dime.
I seem to recall that is Sun who jumped in bed in scox and msft to fund a smear campaign again Linux? Was it not sun who handed over several million to scox, just after scox started the scam lawsuit? And the sun money was handed out at just the same time that msft funded scox, what a coincidence!
Anybody else remember McNealy parroting McBride? How about McNealy saying he was proud to be the *only* vendor who could legally distribute Linux?
I also seem to remember IBM fighting the sun sponsored scox for the last 4.5 years, and I seem to remember IBM making very substantial contributions to Linux. In fact, those contributions were what msft - I mean scox - was so upset about.
Actually it's much more complicated than that. When you consider that msft has an NT line, and until recently had a DOS line, and a server line.
The dos line of windows goes 1, 2, 3 . . then msft pulls the 'ol switcheroo and the NT line picks up at 3.5. Then at the same time, msft also pulls the 'ol switcheroo on the number of their dos based windows line: 1, 2, 3 . . . 95.
Almost as if msft is trying to trick people into thinking that next upgrade to win 3.1 is win 3.5, when in fact the upgrade is to dos based windows in win 95.
Then msft pulls the same 'ol switcheroo again: 95, 98 . . -switheroo- and msft comes out with win2k. Again the NT line picks up where the dos line leaves off. Strange, isn't it? And again, at the same time, msft changes the number scheme of dos based window's line. Now, instead of years, msft switched to letters, i.e. 95, 98, ME.
I am reminded of that Simpson's episode with the Oscar Myer periodic chart with "bolognium" and "delicium."
I think schools should turn this msft "gift" down. There is nothing that msft is offering, that does not have a free alternative.
I am sure a lot of people will label me a linux zealot. But the truth is, I completely understand that linux is not for everybody. But schools are a different matter. Schools should teach vendor-neutral concepts. Students should not be taught that vendor specific jargon and standards are somehow universal. For example, what msft calls a "domain" is different than what is commonly understood. I already notice a lot of students thinking that anything non-msft is non-standard.
Unlike commercial institutions, students do not have the same concerns about the acceptance of vendor specific document formats. For example, some accountants will only accept Intuit formated income statements - so some small businesses have to use Intuit, but students should be able to learn the concepts of accounting, and accounting concepts, without being tied to a specific vendor.
Again, I want to emphasize: students should be taught *concepts* then those concepts can be applied to software from any vendor. Schools should not be in the business of promoting a particular vendor - especially if that vendor does not offer anything that is that freely available anyway.
Sometimes it is very difficult to avoid vendor-lock, but for students, it's easy. So why be vendor locked if you don't have to be?
Msft advocates are fond of saying "everybody is doing the same thing." But the truth is that nobody is brazenly breaking laws, and otherwise scamming like msft. Not even close. Msft is in a class by themselves.
Msft scams include: outright lying to the US-DoJ in video taped testimony, letters from dead people campaign, the scox scam, the acacia scam, outright stealing stacker technology, fake benchmarks, use of shill "journalists" like Enderle, fake "independent" benchmarks, fake "independent" reviews, and on and on.
I have held dod/secret, and ssbi/top-secret clearances. Today, getting a civilian clearance is practically impossible. It costs your employer about $40K - $50K, plus, it takes nearly a year to get - so your employer has to pay your salary for all that time while you are only marginally productive. In today's job market, you had better be something very *very* special if you expect somebody to pay for your clearance.
I am sick to death of these "just get a clearance" posts - as if you just go down to wal-mart and pick one up. Why not suggest "just win the lottery?"
How about this one: "in the future all IT - world-wide - will be performed by six people in India, and all home computing will be done on cell-phones, and those cell phones will be smaller than a dime." Just look at the current trend!! Now please buy my book. Thank you.
Msft is sponsoring scox, and acacia to claim that proprietary technology was illegally put into linux. Of course, these are just more msft FUD PR stunt. But, sponsering companies like acacia and scox to abuse the US legal system, and file bogus lawsuits has a chilling effect on those who might want to use, or contribute to, linux. Msft is, very successfully IMO, putting a legal cloud over linux.
I thought that was the idea of Sarbanes-Oxely, execs are not supposed to able to commit crimes and hide behind the company. Exec can be help personally liable.
Besides, scox paying novell is not the point. The point is to legally prove that Linux does not use proprietary UNIX technology, and to thereby stop the msft FUD.
The trial is significant because this trial has to be completed before the real trial can be held.
What is Sun up to?
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Sun Buys MySQL
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Web-hosting of sorts, would be my quess. I don't mean hosting like dreamhost. I mean more along the lines of utility computing. Sun won't just sell web-space, sun will work closely with it's clients.
Sun has been going open source lately. To make money in F/OSS you sell services, not products. Sun has also announced that sun will be outsourcing their data centers. I think Sun means to expand their data centers a lot, and wants to save money.
A lot of major companies already contract with Sun to run database apps on Sun servers. Those servers are located in Sun's buildings. Sun then contracts with EDS to do the hands-on administration of servers. EDS often contracts with other companies, including a lot of off-shore companies. The datacenters do not have to be offshore, just the people who monitor the systems, and do all the admin work that does not have to be hands-on.
I think Sun may be targeting smaller company, not just banks and the like.
So let's say I want to start a SaaS company to offer hotel management software. Since I don't have a lot money, and I don't want to pay for a lot of computer resources, to get started, I decide to use PHP and MySQL to develop my product. Since this is a commercial offering, I will need to have a commercial version of MySQL, this is where Sun will have me covered. Sun itself will do very little, Sun will contract with other companies to provide back-end support. Sun will hold the licenses to the OS, and the database, and maybe the language - if you decide to use Java. Sun will be the middle-man, the deal maker. Sun will change it's focus from selling hw/sw, to contracting for sevices, and those services will be provided by others.
Or something along those lines, is what I'm guessing.
Doen't Sun call everything "Java" ?
on
Sun Buys MySQL
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· Score: 1
Sun calls Linux "Java." Sun's own ticker symbol is "JAVA." If sun changes the name of MySQL, I think the new name would have to be "Java."
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.
Let's suppose that ODF is indirectly controlled by Sun, and OOXML is directly controlled by msft. Why is it that the indirect control by Sun is cause for alarm, but the direct contol by msft is not cause for alarm?
Why is it relevant that Burton never disputed msft's direct control? Does that make msft's direct control of a supposed open standard all right?
> 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?
Why not both? Is google trying to erode msft's marketshare by financial supporting mozilla/firefox? Should I reject firefox on that basis?
ODF is open, OOXML is not. By using ODF, I can insure my documents will always be readable, and avoid vender lock-in. If that's helpful to Sun, so what?
Don't forget, ODF can be used with msft products. And if msft chose to do so, msft could support ODF just as much as Sun. Msft is also free to contribute to the ODF standard. Therefore ODF does not give Sun any competitive advantage.
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.
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?
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.
As I understand it, msft sells software, not file formats. HTML is an open format, yet msft, and many others, sell HTML editors. Same with ASCII. RTF, and PDF.
It would not cost msft anything to open their formats, so what is the problem? People buy ms-office because it's better than any other office product, not because they are locked in to a proprietary format, correct?
Also, isn't msft saying that OOXML is wide-open? But the OOXML refer to old.doc formats - and those formats are closed. Certainly you don't think that msft should lie about the openness of OOXML, do you?
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Because most people who don't know jack about the real world of IT - like the parent poster - have nothing but contempt for real technology workers.
If you are not going to go into management, at least get out of IT. The parent post was probably written by a 12 year old troll, but it epitomizes the PHB attitude towards technology workers.
Upward Mobility?
Perception counts more than reality. IT workers are seen as idiot savants who you tolerate until you can replace them with even lower paid offshore labor. IT workers are the dogs you kick around. I see ads for IT workers where they ask for college, and experience, for jobs that pay less than menial labor jobs.
Management are seen as creative leaders. Managers have insight, managers are loyal, and responsible. IT workers are more like janitors. Managers have careers, programmers and admins have jobs - often temporary jobs.
Managers work 9 to 5 at best. They don't get called at 3 am to come in and work another 5 hours for free. Managers get offices, promotions, bonuses, and other perks. Managers don't have to spend all of their free time learning another language, or some other technology.
Practically any managerial experience is transferable to practically any other managerial job. If an IT worker has experience with an unpopular product, that experience counts for nothing. And in IT, it's all about the products. Looks at ads for an tech jobs: long lists of products (I have seen over 30 listed for some jobs). And IT workers have to have 5 years experience with each product listed - and it has to be exact - Solaris experience typically will not get you job in an AIX shop. In IT, it seems like practically every job ad you will ever find has at least one product that you don't have experience with, i.e. websphere, weblogic, j2ee, tivoli, citrix, voip, openview, veritas, oracle, java, perl, php, ldap, etc.
Management is just a better career path. Do you see many MBA jobs being offshored?
> I've been an IT manager at several companies and I find that a degree is unnecessary; good management skills are necessary.
Maybe. But people who have paid their dues going to college may feel insulted to be led by a high-school graduate. And these days, they are asking for bachelor degrees for $16/hr PC-Techs and web-designers. If you have 20 years experience, and the people you manage are fresh out of college you may get away with that - maybe.
If I were hiring an IT manager, I doubt I would consider somebody without a four-year degree, at least. In today's market, an ad on craigslist would get me 400 qualified managers who have degrees.
JMHO. But this is a very difficult market all around. When you apply for a managerial job, you are going to be asked: 1) How many people did you supervise? 2) What size budgets did you manage?
Of course, you can always exagerate, to some extent. But, the very worst thing you can do is get caught lying, or even exagerating. Saying you were the CIO of a three person company with $42K in total revenue, will make you look silly.
In this market, unless you have stellar credentials, including extensive experience in management, working your way is about the only way.
"Sun bought some x86 drivers from SCOX outright so they could open up Solaris."
Nobody other than Sun apologists beleive that. Interesting timing wasn't it? Sun never needed those drivers before. Why is that at the exact moment that scox files the bogus lawsuit, and msft gives all that money to the scox scam, only then does sun needs all these drivers? Who are you kidding?
"McNealy made the comment because of a deal Sun made with AT&T ages ago that gave them rights as good as ownership over all the code SCOX was claiming linux infringes on. McNealy was also a jerk."
McNealy made those comments directly after scox "allowed" sun to distribute Linux. McNeally also parroted McBride often word-for-word.
"And as for IBM's contributions... any idiot can sponsor a couple engineers to work on a project that sells their hardware."
Um, IBM's contributions to Linux are generally valued around $1 billion. IBM is also spending much more money fighting the scox-scam than it would have cost IBM to have bought the company.
"Sun is the only company so far to take their previously closed source flagship products ( all of them. Java, SPARC, and Solaris ) and give them to the F/LOSS community"
Not quite. OpenSolaris is not Solaris, and I don't think Java is fully open. Although, I will acknowledge that sun has made substantial contributions to f/oss. Still, the IBM bashing post is ridiculous. IBM has done a lot for f/oss. IBM can not legally open source OS/2 - so what? At least IBM was never in bed with scox.
"It shop class, should the teacher teach the student about the concept of a screwdriver because the teacher doesn't want to be tied to a specific flat-head screwdriver"
I am sorry, but that is an absurdly weak analogy. Using one vendor's screw driver, over another, does not teach students that only one vendor does things the correct way. One screw driver is used just like another.
"Microsoft is basically giving away licenses to schools so students can learn. Why is this so bad?"
It is not so bad. But schools, and especially students, would be much better served if they taught vendor-neutral concepts, instead of working to increase msft's illegal stranglehold on all IT standards. Especially since locking students into the msft-only mindset does not save the schools even one thin dime.
I seem to recall that is Sun who jumped in bed in scox and msft to fund a smear campaign again Linux? Was it not sun who handed over several million to scox, just after scox started the scam lawsuit? And the sun money was handed out at just the same time that msft funded scox, what a coincidence!
Anybody else remember McNealy parroting McBride? How about McNealy saying he was proud to be the *only* vendor who could legally distribute Linux?
I also seem to remember IBM fighting the sun sponsored scox for the last 4.5 years, and I seem to remember IBM making very substantial contributions to Linux. In fact, those contributions were what msft - I mean scox - was so upset about.
Msft counting: 1, 2, 3, 4, 95, 98, 2000, 2003, 7
Actually it's much more complicated than that. When you consider that msft has an NT line, and until recently had a DOS line, and a server line.
The dos line of windows goes 1, 2, 3 . . then msft pulls the 'ol switcheroo and the NT line picks up at 3.5. Then at the same time, msft also pulls the 'ol switcheroo on the number of their dos based windows line: 1, 2, 3 . . . 95.
Almost as if msft is trying to trick people into thinking that next upgrade to win 3.1 is win 3.5, when in fact the upgrade is to dos based windows in win 95.
Then msft pulls the same 'ol switcheroo again: 95, 98 . . -switheroo- and msft comes out with win2k. Again the NT line picks up where the dos line leaves off. Strange, isn't it? And again, at the same time, msft changes the number scheme of dos based window's line. Now, instead of years, msft switched to letters, i.e. 95, 98, ME.
I am reminded of that Simpson's episode with the Oscar Myer periodic chart with "bolognium" and "delicium."
I think schools should turn this msft "gift" down. There is nothing that msft is offering, that does not have a free alternative.
I am sure a lot of people will label me a linux zealot. But the truth is, I completely understand that linux is not for everybody. But schools are a different matter. Schools should teach vendor-neutral concepts. Students should not be taught that vendor specific jargon and standards are somehow universal. For example, what msft calls a "domain" is different than what is commonly understood. I already notice a lot of students thinking that anything non-msft is non-standard.
Unlike commercial institutions, students do not have the same concerns about the acceptance of vendor specific document formats. For example, some accountants will only accept Intuit formated income statements - so some small businesses have to use Intuit, but students should be able to learn the concepts of accounting, and accounting concepts, without being tied to a specific vendor.
Again, I want to emphasize: students should be taught *concepts* then those concepts can be applied to software from any vendor. Schools should not be in the business of promoting a particular vendor - especially if that vendor does not offer anything that is that freely available anyway.
Sometimes it is very difficult to avoid vendor-lock, but for students, it's easy. So why be vendor locked if you don't have to be?
Msft advocates are fond of saying "everybody is doing the same thing." But the truth is that nobody is brazenly breaking laws, and otherwise scamming like msft. Not even close. Msft is in a class by themselves.
Msft scams include: outright lying to the US-DoJ in video taped testimony, letters from dead people campaign, the scox scam, the acacia scam, outright stealing stacker technology, fake benchmarks, use of shill "journalists" like Enderle, fake "independent" benchmarks, fake "independent" reviews, and on and on.
Msft == corruption, like no other company.
Maybe that's the way to go?
With all the IP crap that is going on, I doubt you have any trouble finding work. And I doubt that patent attorney work is easy to outsource.
I have held dod/secret, and ssbi/top-secret clearances. Today, getting a civilian clearance is practically impossible. It costs your employer about $40K - $50K, plus, it takes nearly a year to get - so your employer has to pay your salary for all that time while you are only marginally productive. In today's job market, you had better be something very *very* special if you expect somebody to pay for your clearance.
I am sick to death of these "just get a clearance" posts - as if you just go down to wal-mart and pick one up. Why not suggest "just win the lottery?"
How about this one: "in the future all IT - world-wide - will be performed by six people in India, and all home computing will be done on cell-phones, and those cell phones will be smaller than a dime." Just look at the current trend!! Now please buy my book. Thank you.
It is not as simple as that. The trials would go on, even if scox files chapter 7, and even if scox is no longer in business.
Msft is sponsoring scox, and acacia to claim that proprietary technology was illegally put into linux. Of course, these are just more msft FUD PR stunt. But, sponsering companies like acacia and scox to abuse the US legal system, and file bogus lawsuits has a chilling effect on those who might want to use, or contribute to, linux. Msft is, very successfully IMO, putting a legal cloud over linux.
I thought that was the idea of Sarbanes-Oxely, execs are not supposed to able to commit crimes and hide behind the company. Exec can be help personally liable.
Besides, scox paying novell is not the point. The point is to legally prove that Linux does not use proprietary UNIX technology, and to thereby stop the msft FUD.
The trial is significant because this trial has to be completed before the real trial can be held.
Web-hosting of sorts, would be my quess. I don't mean hosting like dreamhost. I mean more along the lines of utility computing. Sun won't just sell web-space, sun will work closely with it's clients.
Sun has been going open source lately. To make money in F/OSS you sell services, not products. Sun has also announced that sun will be outsourcing their data centers. I think Sun means to expand their data centers a lot, and wants to save money.
A lot of major companies already contract with Sun to run database apps on Sun servers. Those servers are located in Sun's buildings. Sun then contracts with EDS to do the hands-on administration of servers. EDS often contracts with other companies, including a lot of off-shore companies. The datacenters do not have to be offshore, just the people who monitor the systems, and do all the admin work that does not have to be hands-on.
I think Sun may be targeting smaller company, not just banks and the like.
So let's say I want to start a SaaS company to offer hotel management software. Since I don't have a lot money, and I don't want to pay for a lot of computer resources, to get started, I decide to use PHP and MySQL to develop my product. Since this is a commercial offering, I will need to have a commercial version of MySQL, this is where Sun will have me covered. Sun itself will do very little, Sun will contract with other companies to provide back-end support. Sun will hold the licenses to the OS, and the database, and maybe the language - if you decide to use Java. Sun will be the middle-man, the deal maker. Sun will change it's focus from selling hw/sw, to contracting for sevices, and those services will be provided by others.
Or something along those lines, is what I'm guessing.
Sun calls Linux "Java." Sun's own ticker symbol is "JAVA." If sun changes the name of MySQL, I think the new name would have to be "Java."
It's like that SouthPark episode with "Moldor."
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.
Let's suppose that ODF is indirectly controlled by Sun, and OOXML is directly controlled by msft. Why is it that the indirect control by Sun is cause for alarm, but the direct contol by msft is not cause for alarm?
Why is it relevant that Burton never disputed msft's direct control? Does that make msft's direct control of a supposed open standard all right?
> 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?
Why not both? Is google trying to erode msft's marketshare by financial supporting mozilla/firefox? Should I reject firefox on that basis?
ODF is open, OOXML is not. By using ODF, I can insure my documents will always be readable, and avoid vender lock-in. If that's helpful to Sun, so what?
Don't forget, ODF can be used with msft products. And if msft chose to do so, msft could support ODF just as much as Sun. Msft is also free to contribute to the ODF standard. Therefore ODF does not give Sun any competitive advantage.
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.
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?
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.
Msft is for-profit, and that is fine with me.
.doc formats - and those formats are closed. Certainly you don't think that msft should lie about the openness of OOXML, do you?
As I understand it, msft sells software, not file formats. HTML is an open format, yet msft, and many others, sell HTML editors. Same with ASCII. RTF, and PDF.
It would not cost msft anything to open their formats, so what is the problem? People buy ms-office because it's better than any other office product, not because they are locked in to a proprietary format, correct?
Also, isn't msft saying that OOXML is wide-open? But the OOXML refer to old