Great quote from Eric Knorr. He hits the nail on the head here, pointing out the problem Office 2.0 Web Apps and SaaS apps face: If these Web wonders have interoperability and high fidelity document exchange with MSOffice, their collaborative features are value added wonders for existing business processes and workgroup-workflow scenarios. If, on the other hand they lack this level of interop - integration with MSOffice documents and processes, the value add becomes a problematic split in a business process. The only way to overcome that kind of a split is to take the entire process. Which is difficult for lightweight mashup happy web wonders to do.
Which leaves each and every one of these Office 2.0 - Web 2.0 - Saas Apps vulnerable to Microsoft. As long as Micrsoft owns the interop-integration keys to MSOffice, the web wonders live a precarious life. At any time Microsoft can swoop in and take it all.
Today, the MSOffice OOXML file format displays perfectly in a browser. It's 100% web ready, but only the MS Stack of applications gets to play. Web wonders are not likely to recieve a Redmond invite now or ever.
Which brings us to the issue of the da Vinci plug-in for MSOffice. da Vinci is a clone of the OOXML plug-in for MSOffice, and fully leverages the same internal conversion process that OOXML enjoys. It can achieve the same high fidelity "round trip" conversion that OOXML is capable of. Maybe even better.
The problem for da Vinci isn't conversion fidlelity. Nor is it capturing business process important VBa scripts, macros, OLE, and security settings. da Vinci can do that just fine. The problem is that da Vinci cannot pipe MSOffice developer platform documents into ODF!! For the love of five generic eXtensions, called the iX "interoperability enhancements", which the OASIS ODF TC blew off, ODF failed in Massachusetts.
Without these iX "interoperability enhancements", it's impossible to implement ODF anywhere there are MSOffice bound workgroups and business processes. Which is just about everywhere.
So what now?
For the past four months we have been converting da Vinci to pipe into a recent W3C release of HTML+. It's difficult, but we now are certain it can be done with the same high fidelity "round trip" conversion Microsoft achieves with the OOXML plug-in.
The significance of this discovery and proof is that there is a web ready alternative to MS-OOXML and the MS Stack. An alternative that should provide Office 2.0 - Web 2.0 and SaaS apps the same measure of interop - integration with existing documents, applications and processes that Microsoft now enjoys.
The consumer is caught between a rock and a hard place. Waiting for either the ODF or the OOXML gangs of big vendors to blink is a non starter. And even if they did want to harmonize or converge, that in itself may well be a technical impossiblity. The differences between how MSOffice works and how OpenOffice works are directly and "perfectly" reflected in the file formats. And never the twain shall meet.
So here it is. The world is not a clean slate. There are MSoffice workgroups everywhere. Meaning, in real world terms ODF is impossible to implement. Besides that, ODF is a desktop office suite only file format. It was not designed for the Internet, and can only be useful in that capacity through a lossy conversion. OOXML was designed to cover the full expanse of desktop, server, device and web. Only, it's to be a 100% Microsoft dominated and controlled expanse. Which leaves us with one alternative: HTML+
the fact is that Redmond could own this new space if it wanted to. All it would need to do is push interoperability and integration between lightweight Web versions of Office applications and its desktop fatware. Advanced features would be absent from the lightweight versions, but the company could ensure any Office doc would load on the Web -- whatever new desktop service packs and upgrades might appear -- and online document management could be integrated with Windows for offline access.
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Which leaves each and every one of these Office 2.0 - Web 2.0 - Saas Apps vulnerable to Microsoft. As long as Micrsoft owns the interop-integration keys to MSOffice, the web wonders live a precarious life. At any time Microsoft can swoop in and take it all.
Today, the MSOffice OOXML file format displays perfectly in a browser. It's 100% web ready, but only the MS Stack of applications gets to play. Web wonders are not likely to recieve a Redmond invite now or ever.
Which brings us to the issue of the da Vinci plug-in for MSOffice. da Vinci is a clone of the OOXML plug-in for MSOffice, and fully leverages the same internal conversion process that OOXML enjoys. It can achieve the same high fidelity "round trip" conversion that OOXML is capable of. Maybe even better.
The problem for da Vinci isn't conversion fidlelity. Nor is it capturing business process important VBa scripts, macros, OLE, and security settings. da Vinci can do that just fine. The problem is that da Vinci cannot pipe MSOffice developer platform documents into ODF!! For the love of five generic eXtensions, called the iX "interoperability enhancements", which the OASIS ODF TC blew off, ODF failed in Massachusetts.
Without these iX "interoperability enhancements", it's impossible to implement ODF anywhere there are MSOffice bound workgroups and business processes. Which is just about everywhere.
So what now?
For the past four months we have been converting da Vinci to pipe into a recent W3C release of HTML+. It's difficult, but we now are certain it can be done with the same high fidelity "round trip" conversion Microsoft achieves with the OOXML plug-in.
The significance of this discovery and proof is that there is a web ready alternative to MS-OOXML and the MS Stack. An alternative that should provide Office 2.0 - Web 2.0 and SaaS apps the same measure of interop - integration with existing documents, applications and processes that Microsoft now enjoys.
The consumer is caught between a rock and a hard place. Waiting for either the ODF or the OOXML gangs of big vendors to blink is a non starter. And even if they did want to harmonize or converge, that in itself may well be a technical impossiblity. The differences between how MSOffice works and how OpenOffice works are directly and "perfectly" reflected in the file formats. And never the twain shall meet.
So here it is. The world is not a clean slate. There are MSoffice workgroups everywhere. Meaning, in real world terms ODF is impossible to implement. Besides that, ODF is a desktop office suite only file format. It was not designed for the Internet, and can only be useful in that capacity through a lossy conversion. OOXML was designed to cover the full expanse of desktop, server, device and web. Only, it's to be a 100% Microsoft dominated and controlled expanse. Which leaves us with one alternative: HTML+
Time to get back to work :)
~ge~
Ref: "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?"