Group items tagged

.... "I recently described how Google's Wave, a collaboration tool based on the new HTML 5 standard, demonstrated the potential for Web applications to unglue Microsoft's hold on customers. My post quoted Gary Edwards, the former president of the Open Document Foundation, a first-hand witness to the failed attempt by Massachusetts to dump Microsoft and as experienced a hand at Microsoft-tilting as anyone I know......"

The InformationWeek series of articles outlining the challenges Microsoft faces does not cover the recent anti-trust actions by the EU - DG Competition group. Even so, the series does paint a pretty gloomy scenario. Especially if you're a Microsoft shareholder. No doubt the IW guys are shorting Microsoft.

All in all, this series is an accurate assessment except for one thing; they don't credit the strength of Microsoft's monopoly position and their ability to leverage the desktop monopoly into a full fledged "business" Web monopoly. MOSS (Microsoft Office - SharePoint Server) system is kicking ass, and the world is worried that browsers like Opera are not getting a fair shake on the desktop. Microsoft is a platform player, and you can't fight that at the application level.

Connecting the desktop platform to backend relational and transaction servers defines the 1995 monopoly. Connecting the desktop platform to the Web platform will define the next big monopoly play. The EU has got to get off the application layer and out of the open standards vendor consortia if they are to stop this juggernaut.

The reason they need to get out of the standards consortia and write/demand their own "advanced recommendations" - like WebKit, is the cleverness of Microsoft's "duality" approach. The target has to be that of restoring competition at the high end of collaborative Web computing, where Microsoft's proprietary WPF-.NET technologies rule. Any format, protocol, or interface used to connect platforms, applications or services must be open and available to all - including the reverse engineering rights.

So far the EU has left me less than hopeful. I do however believe that WebKit can get the job done. It would be nice if the EU could at the least slow the beast of Redmond down.

~ge~

Response to the InformationWeek article "Remaking Microsoft: Get Out of Web Search!". Covers "The Myth of Google Enterprise Search", and the refusal of Google to implement or recognize W3C Semantic Web technologies. This refusal protects Google's proprietary search and categorization algorithms, but it opens the door wide for Microsoft Office editors to totally exploit the end-user semantic interface opportunities. If Microsoft can pull this off, they will take "search" to the Enterprise and beyond into every high end discipline using MSOffice to edit Web ready documents (private and public use). Also a bit about WebKit as the most disruptive technology Microsoft has faced since the advent of the Web.

While the workgroup failed to decide between "choice" (Microsoft's mantra) and "openness" (the ODF mantra), predictably punting this question to a new Electronic Records Committee, it did issue a number of interesting findings, the most important of which reads as follows:

In the office suite format debate, there currently is no compelling solution for the State's openness needs. The State needs open standards and formats. Simultaneously, the State needs electronic records to be preserved in their original formats whenever possible. Many Request for Public Comments commenters, particularly in response to the e-discovery questions, stated preserving a record in the same format as it was created results in a more faithful record and diminishes the possibility of expensive e-discovery disputes. This is important to ensure future generations of New Yorkers can access the permanently valuable electronic records being created today. Moreover, State Archives emphasizes creating records in open formats makes it easier to preserve their essential characteristics and demonstrates they are authentic (i.e., they were created in the course of State government business and have not been altered without proper authorization).

I imagine that the workgroup must have found some level of solace in arriving at the one conclusion that all the experts seem to agree on: that electronic documents should be published using the same format in which they are created. If this principle held true for state documents, it would reduce the job of the new Electronic Records Committee to deciding between three alternatives: (1) require all state agencies to create and publish their documents in OOXML, (2) require all state agencies to create and publish their documents in ODF, or (3) allow each agency to decide which of these formats, OOXML or ODF, they will use in creating and publishing their documents. Unfortunately, this central assumption is incorrect, and adopting it as a basi

Jon Bosak on the recent New York State decision to support both ODF and OOXML. Jon makes an important distinction between application editable formats such as ODF and OOXML, and, publishing formats like PDF. He does not cover HTML-CSS as either an editing or publishing format even though it is clearly used as both to the tune of over 4 billion documents. Goog arguments from a world reknown expert.