Group items tagged

To be fair, Microsoft seeks to solve real world problems with respect to helping customers glean more value from their information. But the approach depends on enterprises adopting an end-to-end Microsoft stack—vertically from desktop to server and horizontally across desktop and server products. The development glue is .NET Framework, while the informational glue is OOXML.

Microsoft seeks to create sales pull along the vertical stack between the desktop and server.

Microsoft's major XML-based format development priority was backward compatibility with its proprietary Office binary file formats.

First, let me say that I am a CIO in a small (20 employees but growing fast) financial services company. I am well aware of how locked-in I am getting with our MS-only shop. I am trying to see my way out of it, but this "ODF vs ODFF" is leaving me very confused and no one is working to clear the fog. I beg for all parties to really work towards some sort of defined understanding. I don't need cooperation. But, what I don't have is well-defined positions from all parties. As it is, I feel safer staying the course with MS right now, honestly. It's what I know vs the mystery of this "open cloud" and all the bellicose infighting. How's that for "in the trenches" data? I posted a comment on Andy's blog, and I will post the same comment here for your group (minor edits): I will admit to being very, very confused by all of this ODF vs ODFF posturing. I will try to put my current thoughts in short form, but it will be a muddled mess. I warned you! From what I gather, the OpenDocument Foundation (ODFF) is attempting to create more of an interop format for working against a background MS server stack (Exchange/Sharepoint). You worry that MS is further cementing their business lock-in by moving more and more companies into dependency on not only the client-side software but also the MS business stack that has finally evolved into a serious competitive set. At that level, and in your view, the "atomic unit" is the whole document. The encoded content is not of immediate concern. ODF is concerned with the actual document content, which ODFF is prepared to ignore. The "atomic unit" is the bits and parts in the document. They want to break the proprietary encodings that MS has that lock people into MSOffice. The stack is not of any immediate concern. So, unless I misunderstand either camp, ODF is first attacking the client end of the stack, and ODFF is attacking the backbone server end of the stack. The former wants to break the MSOffice monopoly by allowing people to escape those proprietary encodings, and the latter wants to prevent the dependency on server software like Exchange and Sharepoint by allowing MS documents to travel to other destinations than MS "server" products. Is this correct? I have yet to see anyone summarize the differences in any non-partisan way, so I am at a loss and not enough information is forthcoming for me to see what's what. The usual diatribe by people closer to the action is to go into the history of ODF or ODFF, talk about old slights and lost fights, and somehow try to pull at emotional heartstrings so as to gain mindshare. Gary's set of comments on this blog have that flavor. This is childish on both sides. Furthermore, the word "orthogonal" comes to mind. I often see people too busy arguing their POV, and not listening to others, when there is no real argument to keep making. It's apple-and-oranges. ODF vs ODFF seems like they are caught in this trap. Everyone wants to win an argument that has no possible win because the participants are not arguing about the same thing. Tell me: Why can't the two parties get along? I can see a "cooperative" that attacks the entire stack. Am I the only one seeing this? Am I wrong? If yes, what's the fundamental difference that prevents cooperation?

In a new setback to Microsoft's public sector business, the influential National Institute of Standards and Technology has banned the software maker's Windows Vista operating system from its internal computing networks, according to an agency document obtained by InformationWeek.

The problem with that, as I understand it, is that the transitional spec is pretty much unimplementable by anybody except MS

garyedwards's Discussions Breaking the Web Talkback: Google: OOXML 'insufficient and unnecessary'

»  E-Mail »  Print »  Discuss »  Write To Editor late last year -- can be resolved. "We have more confidence in Microsoft than we would have 10 years ago," says Schmidt. "But it always makes sense to look at the security implications, the value back to the customer, and those kind of issues." The DOT's ban on Vista, Internet Explorer 7, and Office 2007 applies to 15,000 computer users at DOT proper who are currently running the Windows XP Professional operating system. The memo indicates that a similar ban is in effect at the Federal Aviation Administration, which has 45,000 desktop users. Compatibility with existing applications appears to be the Transportation Department's major concern. According to a separate memo, a number of key software applications and utilities in use in various branches of the department aren't Vista compatible. Among them are Aspen 2.8.1, ISS 2.11, ProVu 3.1.1, and Capri 6.5, according to a memo issued by staffers at the DOT's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Any prolonged ban on new Microsoft technologies by the federal government could have a significant impact on the software maker's bottom line, as Microsoft sells millions of dollars in software to the feds annually. http://as.cmpnet.com/event.ng/Type=count&ClientType=2&AdID=125682&FlightID=75634&TargetID=2625&SiteID=222&AffiliateID=283&EntityDefResetFlag=0&Segments=1411,3108,3448,11291,12119&Targets=2625,2878,7904,8579&Values=34,46,51,63,77,87,91,102,140,222,227,283,442,646,656,1184,1255,1311,1405,1431,1716,1767,1785,1798,1925,1945,1970,2217,2299,2310,2326,2352,2678,2727,2767,2862,2942,3140,3347,3632,3636,3638,3890,3904,4080,448

Opponents to OOXML, which include IBM (Quote) and the Open Document Foundation, have argued that Microsoft's specifications are unwieldy and that the standard application is redundant with the Open Document Format (ODF), which already exists. Microsoft has countered that the OOXML format is valuable because it is closer to Office 2007 and is backwards-compatible with older versions of Office. "Although both ODF and Open XML are document formats, they are designed to address different needs in the marketplace," the company wrote in an open letter published earlier this month.

Most .NET developers are ASP.NET developers, developing for Microsoft's web server. ASP.NET is brilliant; I've been working with web development for ten years and it's really just a generation ahead of everything out there. But it's a server technology, so clients can use any kind of desktop they want. And it runs pretty well under Linux using Mono. None of this bodes well for Microsoft and the profits it enjoyed thanks to its API power. The new API is HTML, and the new winners in the application development marketplace will be the people who can make HTML sing.

In this exclusive interview with APC, Mundie says the notion of all software delivered entirely through the web browser is now widely recognised as being 'popular mythology'. He also stakes the claim that Google's existence and success was contingent on Microsoft creating Windows. He talks about what's coming down the pipeline for future versions of Windows, and his belief that Windows can get still more market share than it has today. He also discusses the issues around the recent controversy over the Office Open XML file format.

So Vista is in its diffusion cycle and until there is enough of it out there, you won't really see the developer community come across.

So far, we have delivered about 60 million copies. That would represent about six per cent of the global Windows install base. So it has probably got to get up another few percentage points before you will start to see a big migration of the developer community.

Unless we add conformance requirements for the preservation of metadata and processing instructions, the less featureful apps will never  be able to round-trip documents with the more featureful apps. Our language should require that. Personally, I believe that the software-as-an-end-point client-side office suites are dinosaurs at the end of their era. They are being finished off by a thousand cuts as users spend less and less time using them and more and more time using other apps, such as web apps. ODF either develops methods for interoperability among all apps or it will die along with the office suites. E.g., Microsoft knows this and is busily migrating its Office development budget across the Sharepoint/Exchange server hubs to the network. Meanwhile, this TC fiddles with preserving the 1995 software-as-an-endpoint vision.

this new draft includes Microsoft's OOXML formats as an acceptable "open format." 

By taking a fundamentally Web-based approach to the development of applications, we shift from bolting Web capabilities onto the silo toward a mode in which data and functionality are native to the Web: a mode in which the design decisions are more about modelling business requirements for limiting the ways in which data flows from one point to another rather than trying to anticipate the places in which it might be needed in order to design those pathways into software from the outset.

How do we change the mindset of today’s application developers, in order that they stop building ‘old’ applications in the new world?