Looks like that fast track had some slick spots...
Microsoft's goal of getting governments across the globe to embrace its Office Open XML format has hit roadblocks in both the United States and abroad.Every step of this process has been great fun to watch. Microsoft seems to have the best spin guys in the world working on this -- their futures in politics are bright.
In the United States, legislation was introduced in Texas and Minnesota the week of Feb. 5 to mandate the adoption of open document formats that will essentially preserve all documents in an open, XML-based file format that is interoperable among diverse internal and external platforms and applications.
The formats will also need to be fully published without restrictions, available royalty-free and implemented by multiple vendors. In addition, they will have to be controlled by an open industry organization with a well-defined inclusive process for evolution of the standard. ...
Adding to the bad news for Microsoft is the fact that 19 countries have submitted "contradictions" to the bid to get fast-track approval of the standard by the International Standards Organization.
"In that vein, we encourage them to adopt neutral technology procurement practices so that they have the greatest choice among available technologies, and so encourage competition in the marketplace and get the maximum value out of their IT investments," [Microsoft's Robertson] said. "Mandating a specific document format for government use reduces a government's ability to communicate with its constituents, make the best use of available technology, and promote competition and innovation in the marketplace."I can't even begin to guess why mandating a specific ISO standard document format reduces ability to communicate. Isn't that the whole point of standards -- a common method of interoperability?
Link: eWeek: Microsoft's Open XML format hits roadblocks in US, abroad > (Thanks, Henry)
Also see Rob Weir: Merely a flesh wound? >
Post a Comment
- 2
Bill Geimer | 2/8/2007 3:38:13 PM
Wasn't it just a short time back when Katrina victims could not apply for aid from the workstations that were provided at first because they used Open Standards and FireFox browsers (and were built with zero funds) while the government web servers use proprietary ASP technology?
Wasn't that the government doing just was Microsoft wants them to do, but cutting off support to the people the were supposed to be helping?
- 3
Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/8/2007 3:40:51 PM
That was fun reading, Ben! Posts like that that seek to attack IBM Global Services ignore the fact that one of the practice areas in IGS is MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGIES. And then there's Avanade, Microsoft's joint venture that does nothing but, you guessed it, MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGIES. Microsoft always seeks to portray services as an evil money-gouging thing, but they play on that field as well, including their own consulting services team.
I love the obfuscation in Murray's statement: "If your business model is packaged software then your actions and strategies will be guided in a particular direction. If your underlying business model and growth comes from a human services then you will undertake very different set of actions driven by that model." What business is his employer, Microsoft, in again?
- 4
Alan Dalziel | 2/8/2007 3:42:32 PM
. . are enlightening as he focuses on the membership breakdown of JTC1, the council currently hearing the application. Of the 30 principal members, 16 have filed contradictions (and when could a contradiction be considered supportive as Brian Jones suggests?) and no more than 10 can vote against the application for it to continue?
I love the M$ FUD machine about IBM being behind it all, which we all know is a pathetic attempt to divert attention from the issue at hand that M$ is trying to impose their standard as an "open" one. What's even funnier is the title of their product - Office Open XML is just a little too much like one of the proponents of ODF, OpenOffice, that even I misread it that way and it confused the heck out of me for a few sentences until I went back and re-read.
A corporation trying to get the rest of the world to adopt a proprietary product as an open standard, especially M$, is like having (insert the name of your least favorite auto manufacturer here) defining the only design of car the rest of the world can build, based on the (insert the name of car model that you hate). Not exactly a great step forward.
A collective approach to defining open standards is the most obvious method of ending up with a productive and more acceptable product for all, and that is precisely what the ODF people did. I applaud IBM for being involved with ODF, and for not grabbing the wheel and driving it the way they wanted to!
- 5
Flemming Riis | 2/8/2007 4:12:11 PM
-while the government web servers use proprietary ASP technology?
what does that have to do with a developers not bothering to make a site standard compliant.
{ Link } if this was the example.
- 6
Bob Sutor http://www.sutor.com/blog/ | 2/8/2007 5:57:57 PM
Just for fun try substituting things like "HTML standard" or "electrical standard" in Robertson's final quote.
- 7
Jeff Picco | 2/8/2007 10:52:58 PM
OMG - that is funny. I was telling a few people at work that we need to consider embracing a doc format other than MS Word. They said I was crazy.
- 8
Bill Brown | 2/9/2007 8:31:33 AM
Classic Microsloth
Embrace and extend to make it proprietary.
ALL YOUR DATA ARE BELONG TO US!
It took making quite a ruckus to get my organization to stop posting things to the web using DOC, XLS and other proprietary formats in favor of PDF, which is more open.
Interestingly enough, even PDF is not considered open enough for the NY State Archives office because the format is controlled by a single corporate entity. It looks like PDF might fail the tests set for openess defined in the legislation mentioned by eWeek.
- 9
Dan Sickles | 2/9/2007 11:26:37 AM
Sun just announced an ODF plugin for Office:
{ Link }
- 10
Dennis | 2/9/2007 11:29:12 AM
No problem, they can just buy the countries that object.
- 11
Max | 2/9/2007 4:02:37 PM
Look at this: { Link }
My opinion is that the main problem with the de-jure standard is that they are fixed in time and they block innovation. It is much better to have an interoperability standard. WebServices or HTML are good examples: they don't require a particular application/web server/client/communication channel/etc.. Gov organizations could use what they prefere but they could store and publish documents in several formats (can be a nice content manager feature). Actually they don't do that: they are moving from a cage to another cage. And using a lot of our taxes.
- 12
Simon Bounds | 2/9/2007 4:14:42 PM
I think that the most amusing component of the discussion on { Link } is that when read with Firefox the banner in the header reads "Technology . . . . . " and some words that you cannot read. If you read the site with IE, you can see it says "Technology Policy Blog"
Is this what is meant by interoperability?
Is this what Microsoft's Open XML format will display. A one out of three success rate for conversion?
- 13
Alan Dalziel | 2/10/2007 6:33:24 AM
@12 - Did you notice this line in the entry?
It is not surprising then that a huge proportion of Microsoft's $7+ Billion annual R&D investment goes into reducing the implementation complexity of its software products.
Wow. $7billion+ and you still have to rip and replace Exchange!
- 14
Sean Harris | 2/12/2007 12:37:47 PM
,It's funny how they state (as fact?) how complex ODF will be "The brutal truth is that implementing the ODF standard is going to be far more complex than implementing the Open XML standard" compared to OOXML "implementing information systems using Open XML will be far less complex, easier to integrate and will have a lower life cycle costs than implementing ODF should not be a surprise . . ." , and that it will have a lower support cost. Reeeaaally!
I can tell you, as a fact, that of the many companies I have done consulting for [that were an 'even' mix of Lotus/Microsoft products], there were twice as many Microsoft Support personnel as there were Lotus Support Personnel. And many times the Lotus Support Personnel also helped out with the Microsoft support.
Alan's @13 comment certainly rings true . . . if Microsoft is trying to make new products easier to use and implement then why do we have to consistently rip and replace them (Exchange, Active Directory, Windows etc.), and why are their document formats almost never compatible (forward or backward) when we upgrade to the next version of their Office Suite (remember the Office 2000 RTF deception)?
Perhaps the $7Billion+ is how to figure out how to add new features (and eye candy) to make their products desirable, but at the same time make them not compatible enough to work with previous versions consistently . . . it's a very fine line :^ )
Also, word on the street is that Microsoft's new format OOXML (Office Open XML) is being pronounced Ox Smell. Now I don't know about you, but that can't be a pretty fragrance :^ P
My favorite two "spin" points are Brian Jones saying (of the 19 countries raising contradictions) "It will most likely turn out that some of comments are in support..." at { Link } and Jonathan Murray's hysterical attack on IBM where he says, among other gems, "The brutal truth is that implementing the ODF standard is going to be far more complex than implementing the Open XML standard. Let's start by making the decision about whose exact implementation of the ODF standard you are going to choose.", implicitly saying that it must be easier if there is only one possible implementation of a standard. (See { Link } for that quote and more fun)
You should be proud, Ed, as Microsoft has clearly decided that the message of the day is that all objections come from IBM. The other 368 members of the ODF Alliance, for example, are clearly just chopped liver.