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Gary Edwards

Dump the file server: Why we moved to the SharePoint Online cloud [review] - 0 views

betanews.com/...sharepoint-online-cloud-review

ODF document-wars Cloud-Computing

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • For this article, I wanted to focus on an important aspect of our move to Office 365, and that was our adoption of SharePoint Online as our sole document file server. I know, how passé for me to call it a file server as it represents everything that fixes what plagues traditional file servers and NASes. Let's face it: file servers have been a necessary evil, not a nicety that have enabled collaboration and seamless access to data. They offer superior security and storage space, but this comes at the price of external access and coauthoring functionality. Corporate IT departments have had a band-aid known as VPN for some time now, but it falls short of being the panacea vendors like Cisco make it out to be. I know this well -- I support these kinds of VPNs day to day. Their licensing is convoluted, they're drowning in client application bug hell, and most of all, bound by the performance bottlenecks on either the client or server end.
  • I previously wrote about how my company used to juggle two distinct file storage systems. We had Google Drive as our web-based cloud document platform, buts its penetration didn't go much further than its Google Docs functionality. That's because Google has a love-hate relationship with any Office file that's not a Google Doc. Sure, you can upload it and store it on the service, but the bells and whistles end there. Want to edit it with others? It MUST be converted to Google's format. And so we had to keep a crutch in place for everything else that had to stay in traditional Office formats, either due to customer requirements, complex formatting, or other reasons. That other device for us was a simple QNAP NAS box with 1.5TB of space.
  • I previously wrote about how my company used to juggle two distinct file storage systems. We had Google Drive as our web-based cloud document platform, buts its penetration didn't go much further than its Google Docs functionality. That's because Google has a love-hate relationship with any Office file that's not a Google Doc. Sure, you can upload it and store it on the service, but the bells and whistles end there. Want to edit it with others? It MUST be converted to Google's format.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • And so we had to keep a crutch in place for everything else that had to stay in traditional Office formats, either due to customer requirements, complex formatting, or other reasons. That other device for us was a simple QNAP NAS box with 1.5TB of space.
  • We liked Google Drive's real time collaboration functionality, but the way it treated non-Docs files was pretty pitiful.
  • Dropbox for Business provides the best headroom for growth, but it's starting monthly price is too much to swallow.
  • And Box and Egnyte don't bring much more to the table besides bona fide cloud storage and sync;
  • SharePoint Online offers a rich ecosystem that we can grow on.
  • For the purpose of running our day to day business needs, SharePoint Online has taken over for both Google Drive and our former NAS alike. We don't have to convert items to and from Google Docs anymore just to collaborate. We have as good, or better, permissions in SharePoint compared to Google Drive. And the search power in SharePoint is disgustingly accurate, providing the accuracy and file previews that we were used to on Google Drive.
  • SharePoint Online is first and foremost a cloud solution that has additional tie-ins with Office Online products, OneDrive, etc that may or may not exist in the on-premise version of the product.
  • It's a cloud file server (the focus of this piece). It's a content search hub. It can run public websites and internal intranets. It can help handle complex document workflows. You can even run Access databases on it.
  • I can finally work as I wish, in-browser or in Office 2013 -- or both at once. My entire company "file server" is synced via OneDrive for Business to my Thinkpad, and likewise, I can edit any files in a browser via Office Online apps. It's a nirvana that Google Drive almost afforded us, if it weren't for Google's distaste of traditional Office files. It's good to know you can have your cake and eat it too.
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Mar 14
     
    Yesterday Google announced dramatic price reductions for their Cloud Computing platform. This announcement was followed immediately by a similar announcement from Amazon. But what about Microsoft? The truth is that Microsoft doesn't need to reduce prices, and they are forcing both Google and Amazon reductions. My guess is that there are more reductions to come too. The answer is in this review of SharePoint OnLine and Office 365, where the author points out the fact that Google Drive / Apps totally mangles an MSOffice document. Once Google converts the documents, they are useless. "I previously wrote about how my company used to juggle two distinct file storage systems. We had Google Drive as our web-based cloud document platform, buts its penetration didn't go much further than its Google Docs functionality. That's because Google has a love-hate relationship with any Office file that's not a Google Doc. Sure, you can upload it and store it on the service, but the bells and whistles end there. Want to edit it with others? It MUST be converted to Google's format. And so we had to keep a crutch in place for everything else that had to stay in traditional Office formats, either due to customer requirements, complex formatting, or other reasons. That other device for us was a simple QNAP NAS box with 1.5TB of space." In 2006-2007, when we were in the middle of the great ODF vs OOXML document wars, I had a conversation with Google's Open Source - Opoen Standards guru, Chris DiBona. It was during the Massachusetts crisis, and we were trying to garner Google Corporate support for ODF. Chris listened to my pitch and summarized his position that conversion methods were very advanced, and going forward, file formats really didn't matter. He famously said, "Let a thousand formats bloom". I wonder if he still thinks that?
Gary Edwards

How Does Compound Document Framework Benefit Us? - Axistive.com - Assistive Technology ... - 0 views

www.axistive.com/ment-framework-benefit-us.html

cdf css xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 08 - Cached
  • How does Compound Document Framework Work? The Compound Document framework introduces concepts that are implemented by a number of new classes. The Compound Document framework implements a new, and more versatile, type of document and defines several new classes to support and manage this compound document, therefore its design is in this format document, command and selection, data, storage. The class structure of the Compound Document framework builds on the structure laid down by the Basic Document framework. Therefore, this section introduces only the classes new to the Compound Document framework.
Gary Edwards

Microsoft Closer on \'Office Open\' Blessing - 0 views

www.internetnews.com/...3662681

ecma exchange iso microsoft msoffice oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml sharepoint vista xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • 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.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Internet News is reporting that Ecma has submitted to the ISO/IEC JTC1 their repsonsess to the 20 "fast track" for Ecma 376 (OOXML) objections.  Nothing but blue skies and steady breeze at their back for our friends at Redmond, according to Ecma's rubber stamper in chief, Jan van den Beld.

    Once again there is that ever present drum beat from Microsoft that ODF can't handle MSOffice and legacy MSOffice features - including but not mentioned the conversion to XML of those infamous billions of binary documents:
    "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 diffe
Gary Edwards

Microsoft attacks UK government decision to adopt ODF for document formats - 0 views

www.computerweekly.com/...adopt-ODF-for-document-formats

ODF Microsoft

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • the panel reached consensus that one standard is important to ensure interoperability and to allow users to collaborate effectively on the same document,” said the minutes
  • A subsequent meeting of the same panel also considered a detailed comparison of ODF and OOXML, citing concerns raised by one member. “We need to make sure there is sound reasoning to back up the decision as this may incur significant costs to some government departments. The comparison may be slightly skewed by concentrating solely on implementation of strict OOXML, which is an emerging standard similar to ODF 1.3, whilst considering implementations of all ODF versions. It ignores transitional OOXML which does have very wide support, arguably wider than ODF,” said the meeting minutes.
  • “LH described the issues identified in the [comparison] document and added that there has since been some confusion about support for OOXML strict in LibreOffice.  It appears that LibreOffice supports the standardised transitional OOXML, as well as a different Microsoft version of transitional OOXML,” the minutes stated.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Despite its obvious disappointment at the government’s decision, Microsoft was also keen to point out that its software does fully support ODF.
  • “The good news for Office users is that Office 365 and Office 2013 both have excellent support for the ODF file format, so their current and future investments in Office are safe.  In fact, Office 365 remains the only business productivity suite on the UK government’s G-Cloud that is accredited to the government’s own security classification of 'Official' and which also supports ODF,” said the Microsoft spokesman.
  • Government Digital Service director Mike Bracken
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 14
     
    "Microsoft has attacked the UK government's decision to adopt ODF as its standard document format, saying it is "unclear" how UK citizens will benefit. The Cabinet Office announced its new policy yesterday, whereby Open Document Format (ODF) is immediately established as the standard for sharing documents across the public sector, with PDF and HTML also acceptable when viewing documents. SERGIGN - FOTOLIA The decision was a rejection of Microsoft's preference for Open XML (OOXML), the standard used by its Word software, which remains the dominant wordprocessor in government. "Microsoft notes the government's decision to restrict its support of the file formats it uses for sharing and collaboration to just ODF and HTML," said a spokesman for the software giant in a statement to Computer Weekly. "Microsoft believes it is unproven and unclear how UK citizens will benefit from the government's decision. We actively support a broad range of open standards, which is why, like Adobe has with the PDF file format, we now collaborate with many contributors to maintain the Open XML file format through independent and international standards bodies," it added"
Gary Edwards

Between a rock and a hard place: ODF & CIO's - Where's the Love? - 0 views

www.consortiuminfo.org/...article.php

cio government microsoft oasis odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument openxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • So I'm disappointed. And not just on behalf of open documents, but on behalf of the CIOs of this country, who are now caught between a rock and a hard place, without a paddle to defend themselves with if they won't to do anything new, innovative and necessary, if a major vendor's ox might be gored in consequence. After the impressive lobbying assault mounted over the past six months against open document format legislation, I expect you won't be hearing of many state IT departments taking the baton back from their legislators.    And who can blame them? If they tried, it wouldn't be likely to be anything as harmless as an open document format that would bite them in the butt.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Andy Updegrove weighs in on the wave of ODF legislative failures first decribed by Eric Lai and Gregg Keizer compiled the grim data in a story they posted at ComputerWorld last week titled  Microsoft trounces pro-ODF forces in state battles over open document formats.


    Andy believes that it is the failure of state legislators to do their job that accounts for these failures.  He provides three reasons for this being a a failure of legislative duty.  The most interesting of which is claim that legislators should be protecting CIO's from the ravages of aggressve vendors. 


    The sad truth is that state CIO's are not going to put their careers on the line for a file format after what happened in Massachusetts.


    Andy puts it this way, "
      

    And second, in a situation like this, it is a cop out for legislatures to claim that they should defer to their IT departments to make decisions on open formats.  You don't have to have that good a memory to recall why these bills were introduced in the first place: not because state IT departments aren't a good place to make such decisions, but because successive State CIOs in Massachusetts had been so roughly handled in trying to make these very decisions that no state CIO in his or her right mind was likely to volunteer to be the next sacrificial victim.
    As both Peter Quinn and Louis Gutierrez both found out, trying to make responsible standards-related decisions whe
Gary Edwards

Linux Foundation Legal : Behind Putting the OpenDocument Foundation to Bed (without its... - 0 views

linux-foundation.org/...tion-to-bed-without-its-supper

cdf foundation odf ooxml updegrove

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • CDF is one of the very many useful projects that W3C has been laboring on, but not one that you would have been likely to have heard much about. Until recently, that is, when Gary Edwards, Sam Hiser and Marbux, the management (and perhaps sole remaining members) of the OpenDocument Foundation decided that CDF was the answer to all of the problems that ODF was designed to address. This announcement gave rise to a flurry of press attention that Sam Hiser has collected here. As others (such as Rob Weir) have already documented, these articles gave the OpenDocument Foundation’s position far more attention than it deserved. The most astonishing piece was written by ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley. Early on in her article she stated that, “the ODF camp might unravel before Microsoft’s rival Office Open XML (OOXML) comes up for final international standardization vote early next year.” All because Gary, Sam and Marbux have decided that ODF does not meet their needs. Astonishing indeed, given that there is no available evidence to support such a prediction.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Uh?  The ODF failure in Massachusetts doesn't count as evidence that ODF was not designed to be compatible with existing MS documents or interoperable with existing MSOffice applications?

    And it's not just the da Vinci plug-in that failed to implement ODF in Massachusetts!  Nine months later Sun delivered their ODF plug-in for MSOffice to Massachusetts.  The next day, Massachusetts threw in the towel, officially recognizing MS-OOXML (and the MS-OOXML Compatibility Pack plug-in) as a standard format for the future.

    Worse, the Massachusetts recognition of MS-OOXML came just weeks before the September 2nd ISO vote on MS-OOXML.  Why not wait a few more weeks?  After all, Massachusetts had conducted a year long pilot study to implement ODF using ODF desktop office sutie alternatives to MSOffice.  Not only did the rip out and replace approach fail, but they were also unable to integrate OpenOffice ODF desktops into existing MSOffice bound workgroups.

    The year long pilot study was followed by another year long effort trying to implement ODF using the plug-in approach.  That too failed with Sun's ODF plug-in the final candidate to prove the difficulty of implementing ODF in situations where MSOffice workgroups dominate.

    California and the EU-IDABC were closely watching the events in Massachusetts, as was most every CIO in government and private enterprise.  Reasoning that if Massachusetts was unable to implement ODF, California CIO's totally refused IBM and Sun's effort to get a pilot study underway.

    Across the pond, in the aftermath of Massachusetts CIO Louis Guiterrez resignation on October 4th, 2006, the EU-IDABC set about developing their own file format, ODEF.  The Open Document Exchange Format splashed into the public discussion on February 28th, 2007 at the "Open Document Exchange Workshop" held in Berlin, Germany.

    Meanwhile, the Sun ODF plug-in is fl
Paul Merrell

Gray Matter : Compatibility Pack for Open XML passes 100 million downloads - 0 views

blogs.technet.com/...ses-100-million-downloads.aspx

office 2007 compatibility pack odf-ooxml stats

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Jun 09 - Cached
  • The Compatibility Pack, software that allows you to open, edit and save Open XML format documents in Office XP and 2003 has now been downloaded over 100 million times.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Jun 09
     
    Also includes stats in table form indicating that according to Google Search OOXML documents now outnumber ODF documents on the Web, for word processor documents, spreadsheet documents, and presentation documents.
Gary Edwards

Microsoft trounces pro-ODF forces in state battles over open document formats - 0 views

www.computerworld.com/...article.do

california davinci interop iso massachusetts oasis odef odf ooxml opendocument politics xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Microsoft trounces pro-ODF forces in state battles over open document formats Eric Lai and Gregg Keizer   document.write(''); if (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Gecko")==-1) { document.write(''); } document.write(''); if (document.getElementById('dclk999')) { document.getElementById('dclk999').src = 'http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/idg.us.cpw.desktopapplications/index;pos=imu;tile=3;sz=336x280;ord=' + ord + '?'; } document.write(''); if ((!document.images && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mozilla/2.') >= 0)|| navigator.userAgent.indexOf("WebTV") >= 0) {document.write('');} June 03, 2007 (Computerworld)
  • Keeping it private The other problem, Mathers said, was the jargon-laden disinformation that committee members felt they were being fed by lobbyists for both IBM and Microsoft. Although lobbyists would tell the committee one thing in private, they got cold feet when asked to verify the information publicly, under oath. "Suddenly, nobody wanted to sign witness affirmation forms and testify," he said. That undermined the credibility of each side, but it particularly damaged the position of ODF proponents. After Wyne testified publicly that in Massachusetts, only a handful of computers had thus far been converted over to using ODF, IBM declined to dispute her claims, Mathers said -- despite having earlier given "gleaming" reports on the progress of ODF in Massachusetts. "That's when I really started to question the whole bill," he said.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Uh Oh.  They got IBM dead to rights in Massachusetts.  I guess the truth about Massachusetts will be told!  Finally.  ODF failed in Massachusetts because there isn't a reasonable  means of implementing ODF.  Same in California.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    A must read.  And yes, the ODF Vendors are the reason ODF lost.  They didn't provide useful solutions.  In fact, the applicaitons they proposed were seen by government CIO's as cstly and disruptive "rip out and replace" non starters.  In California, CIO's asked if it was even possible to implement ODF!!!
Gary Edwards

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Mapping documents in the binary format (.doc; .xls; .pp... - 0 views

blogs.msdn.com/...pt-to-the-open-xml-format.aspx

burtongroup cdf css ibm iso microsoft odf okelly ooxml opendocument openxml sun w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • The second issue we had feedback on was an interest in the mapping from the binary formats into the Open XML formats. The thought here was that the most effective way to help people with this was to create an open source translation project to allow binary documents (.doc; .xls; .ppt) to be translated into Open XML. So we proposed the creation of a new open source project that would map a document written using the legacy binary formats to the Open XML formats. TC45 liked this suggestion, and here was the TC45 response to the national body comments: We believe that Interoperability between applications conforming to DIS 29500 is established at the Office Open XML-to- Office Open XML file construct level only.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
       
      And here i was betting that the blueprints to the secret binaries would be released the weekend before the September 2nd, 2007 ISO vote on OOXML! Looks like Microsoft saved the move for when they really had to use it; jus tweeks before the February ISO Ballot Resolution Meetings set to resolve the Sept 2nd issues. The truth is that years of reverse engineering have depleted the value of keeping the binary blueprints secret. It's true that interoperability with MSOffice in the past was near entirely dependent on understanding the secret binaries. Today however, with the rapid emergence of the Exchange/SharePoint juggernaught, interop with MSOffice is no longer the core issue. Now we have to compete with E/S, and it is the E/S interfaces, protocols and document API's and dependencies tha tmust be reverse engineered. The E/S juggernaught is now surging to 70% or more of the market. These near monopoly levels of market penetration is game changing. One must reverse engineer or license the .NET libraries to crack the interop problem. And this time it's not just MSOffice. Today one must crack into the MS Stack whose core is tha tof MSOffice <> E/S. So why not release the secret binary blueprints? If that's the cost of getting the application, platform and vendor specific OOXML through ISO, then it's a small price to pay for your own international standard.
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
     
    Well well well. We knew that IBM had access to the secret binary blueprints back in 2006. Now we know that Sun ALSO had access!
    And why is this important? In June of 2006, Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez asked the OpenDocument Foundation's da Vinci Group to work with IBM on developing the da Vinci ODF plug-in clone of Microsoft's OOXML Compatibility Pack plug-in. When we met with IBM they were insistent that the only way OASIS ODF could establish sufficient compatibility with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents would be to have the secret blueprints open.
    Even after we explained to IBM that da Vinci uses the same internal conversion process that the OOXML plug-in used to convert binaries, IBM continued to insist that opening up the secret binaries was a primary objective of the OASIS ODF community.
    For sure this was important to IBM and Sun, but the secret binaries were of no use to us. da Vinci didn't need them. What da Vinci needed instead was a subset of ODF designed for the conversion of those billions of binary documents! A need opposed by Sun.
    Sun of course would spend the next year developing their own ODF plug-in for MSOffice. But here's the thing: it turns out that Sun had complete access to the secret binary blueprints dating back to 2006!!!!!!
    So even though IBM and Sun have had access to the blueprints since 2006, they have been unable to provide effective conversions to ODF!
    This validates a point the da Vinci group has been trying to make since June of 2006: the problem of perfecting a high fidelity conversion between the billions of binaries and ODF has nothing to do with access to the secret binary blueprints. The real issue is that ODF was NOT designed for the conversion of those binary documents.
    It is true that one could eXtend ODF to achieve the needed compatibility. But one has to be very careful before taking this ro
Gary Edwards

Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft

burtongorup cdf css garyedwards maryjo odf okelly ooxml w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • “ODF represents laudable design and standards work. It’s a clean and useful design, but it’s appropriate mostly for relatively unusual scenarios in which full Microsoft Office file format fidelity isn’t a requirement. Overall, ODF addresses only a subset of what most organizations do with productivity applications today.” The report continues: “ODF is insufficient for complex real-world enterprise requirements, and it is indirectly controlled by Sun Microsystems, despite also being an ISO standard. It’s possible that IBM, Novell, and other vendors may be able to put ODF on a more customer-oriented trajectory in the future and more completely integrate it with the W3C content model, but for now ODF should be seen as more of an anti-Microsoft political statement than an objective technology selection.”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
       
      Mary Jo takes on the recently released Burton Group Report comparing OOXML and ODF. Peter O'Kelly, one of the Burton Group authors, once famously said, "ODF is a great format if you live in an alternative universe where MSOffice doesn't exist!" This observation speaks to the core problem facing ODF and those who seek to implement the ODF standard: ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents. Nor was ODF designed to work with MSOffice applications. Another way of saying this is to state that ODF was not designed to be interoperable with MSOffice documents, applications and bound processes. The truth is that ODF was designed for OpenOffice/StarOffice. It is an application specific format. Both OOXML and ODF do a good job of separating content from presentation (style). The problem is that the presentation - layout layers of both ODF and OOXML remains bound to specific applications producing it. While the content layers are entirely portable and can be exchanged without information loss, the presentation layers can not. Microsoft makes no bones about the application specific design and purpose of OOXML. It's stated right in the Ecma 376 charter that OOXML was designed to be compatible with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents in MSOffice specific binary formats. The situation however is much more confusing with ODF. ODF is often promoted as being application, platform and vendor independent. After five years of development though, the OASIS ODF TC has been unable to strip ODF of it's OpenOffice/StarOffice specific aspects. ODF 1.0 - ISO 26300 had three areas that were under specified; meaning these areas were described in syntax only, and lacked the full semantics demanded by interoperable implementations. Only OpenOffice and StarOffice code base applications are able to exchange documents with an acceptable fidelity. The three under specified areas of ODF are: Lists (numbered), F
Gary Edwards

NYS Open Records Discussion Must Recognize Technical Requirements - 0 views

www.ibiblio.org/...nys-open-records-policy.html

ajax cdf odf ooxml pdf webkit

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Oct 08
     
    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
Gary Edwards

Comments Received in Response to JTC 1 N 8455 - 30 Day Review for Fast Track Ballot ECM... - 0 views

www.incits.org/...DIS29500.htm

ecma376 iso/iec iso26300 odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Well, this is interesting.

    What part of "Executive Board" makes you think they read 6,000 page XML specifications? <ge>

    I think, in the best bureaucratic tradition, they argued definitions until they convinced themselves that they didn't need to do anything.  They decided that one standard contradicts another standard only if the proposed standard causes the existing standard not to work.  This is from analogy with the Chinese WAPI WiFi networking standard last year that was defeated because the protocol caused radio interference with existing 801.11 networks.  So they said that OOXML did not contradict ODF because both files could exist on the same disk without interfering with each other.   You will note that thiss argument can be used for every XML format, every programming language, every operating system, in fact every software standard, since software is ultimately data, and data can be segregated on disks.  So they essentially chose a definition so narrow that it nullified the concept of "contradiction" for most of what JTC1 has authority over.<!-- D(["mb","<div><br><span style\u003d\"color:rgb(0, 0, 153)\"><ge>  Wait a second.   You cannot have a OOXML document and a ODF document sitting on the same disk without having them interfer with each other.  We just proved that with our tests of both ACME 374 and ODF Da Vinci plugin on the latest release of MSOffice Word 2007.\n</span><br style\u003d\"color:rgb(0, 0, 153)\"><br style\u003d\"color:rgb(0, 0, 153)\"><span style\u003d\"color:rgb(0, 0, 153)\">OOXML clearly does interfere with the loading of an ODF file into MSWord 2007.  In prior versions of MSWord (98, 2000, XP, 2003
Gary Edwards

Amazing Stuff: ThinkFree Office Compatibility with MSOffice compared to OpenOffice Comp... - 0 views

product.thinkfree.com/...compatibility

ThinkFree compatibility openoffice msoffice

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Jun 09
     
    This is amazing stuff. With all the talk about OpenOffice ODF compatibility problems with existing MSOffice productivity environments and documents, this comparison is stunning. I stumbled across this Compatibility Comparison reading this article: ThinkFree Set to Launch The First Complete Android Office Suite. Documents To Go is currently the only provider of Word and Excel documents on Android. The ThinkFree Office comparisons to OpenOffice cover a number of familiar compatibility issues, with layout at the top of the list. ThinkFree Write 3.5 vs OpenOffice Writer 3.0 ".....When using a word processor to create documents, you really shouldn't have to worry about whether your client will be able to see the document as you intended." ".... However, if you use a low-cost solution like OpenOffice, you should be prepared for frustrations and disappointments....."
Gary Edwards

Microsoft-led Forum Yields Tools for OOXML Interoperability - Business Center - PC World - 0 views

www.pcworld.com/...or_ooxml_interoperability.html

ooxml plutext wiki-word html

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 May 09 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 May 09
     
    Is there nothing that can cool the flames of this document war? Interesting coverage of the recent OOXML Interoperability event in London (Monday). Real stuff not talk. Since Florian, Jason and i are working on an OpenWeb ready HTML+ layer riding over OOXML there are some things mentioned that look very interesting. ..."An Opera browser plug-in for Open XML Document Viewer v1.0 was released at the meeting; the tool provides direct translation for Open XML documents (.DOCX) to HTML, enabling access to Open XML documents from any platform with a Web browser, including mobile devices. The document-viewing software already includes a plug-in for Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8...." ..."Microsoft and the other participants in Monday's forum also made available a beta of Apache POI 3.5, a Java API (application programming interface) to access information in the Open XML Format....."
Gary Edwards

Microsoft preps Office 365 document management tool for lawyers | Network World - 2 views

www.networkworld.com/...nagement-tool-for-lawyers.html

wordSDK Office-365

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • The product apparently has a special search engine that can be accessed from within Outlook and Word, and it offers functionality to “track or pin” frequently used documents and “matters,” those issues related to managing a law practice. Emails can be dropped into the appropriate context from Outlook, and documents retain their metadata, permissions and version control as they’re stored and shared.
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Aug 14
     
    "Microsoft has developed a document management add-on for Office 365 intended for lawyers, signaling a possible interest by the company in creating vertical-industry tools for the suite. Featured Resource Presented by Riverbed Technology 10 Common Problems APM Helps You Solve Practical advice for you to take full advantage of the benefits of APM and keep your IT environment Learn More Microsoft announced the product, called Matter Center for Office 365, Monday, saying it's in limited preview and available via a beta program to which customers can apply. The company provided few details about how the product works and what features it has, focusing instead on the fact that it is closely integrated with Office 365. Customers will be able to use Matter Center from within the suite's interface and components, like the Word and Excel apps, the SharePoint Online collaboration server and the OneDrive for Business cloud storage service. Matter Center has been designed to let lawyers and other legal professionals "easily find, organize and collaborate on files" within Office 365, instead of having to use a separate document management product. It remains unclear whether Matter Center will have all the security, compliance, retention and search functionality of full-featured document management products already used in legal settings."
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Aug 14
     
    Big barrier in that vertical market; law firms are required by Bar disciplinary rules to protect the confidentiality of client files. Unless Microsoft implements end to end encryption for Office 365 so that it's nigh impossible for the NSA et ilk to gain access to the plain text and rewrites its end user license to guarantee confidentiality of customer files, MSFT will get only the unwary law offices to use Office 365.
Gary Edwards

Novell adds fuel to the fire in OOXML feud - News - Builder AU - 0 views

www.builderau.com.au/...0,339028227,339284338,00.htm

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Microsoft has created its own proprietary document format, Office Open XML (OOXML), as a rival to the community-developed OpenDocument Format (ODF). OOXML is used in Microsoft's latest applications suite, Office 2007. Despite some efforts by the two camps, ODF and OOXML are, for the most part, not interoperable, meaning documents that are created in one format cannot be successfully read by applications based on the other format. According to Novell's vice president of developer platforms, Miguel de Icaza, the situation won't change in the foreseeable future. Want to know more? For all the latest news, analysis and opinion on open source, click here "There's no end in sight to the ongoing disputes between the two camps," said de Icaza, speaking at XML 2007, a Microsoft-sponsored event, on Tuesday. "In 2006, there was lots of FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt] about the problems behind OOXML and it went downhill from there," Icaza said. "Neither group is willing to make the big changes required for real compatibility," de Icaza added.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      What efforts are you talking about? The last time any effort was made to accomodate interoperability was in 2003 with the establishment of the ODF "Compatibilty clause" (Section 1.5). "Despite some efforts by the two camps, ODF and OOXML are, for the most part, not interoperable, meaning documents that are created in one format cannot be successfully read by applications based on the other format......" Section 1.5 authorizes the use of "foreign elements" and "alien attributes". These techniques were specifically written into ODF for handling unknown characteristics of existing MSOffice documents (binary and/or xml) on conversion to ODF. Since the Section 1.5 addition in 2003, every other suggestion to improve interop between ODF and MSOffice documents has been rejected by the OASIS ODF TC and Sub Committees. There are three problems with Section 1.5. The first is that there is only so much that can be done with foreign elements and alien attributes. There are still remaining compatibility issues relating to the basic structures of lists, tables, fields, sections and page dymnamics. The OpenDocument Foundaiton spent over a year trying to get approval for five generic elements relating to these structures, without success. As i said, there has not been a single successful comatibility - interoperability effort since 2003, although many have been proposed. The second reason for the failure of Section 1.5 is that OpenOffice only partially implements the "Compatibility Clause". OOo only recognizes "foreign elements and alien attributes" with text spans and paragraphs. The third reason is that "compatibility" is optional in ODF. The clause does not have any teeth. Applications can implement only those aspects of the spec they feel like implementing, and still be in total "compliance". This creates serious interop problem not only for MSOffice plug-in comverted documents, but also renders as
Gary Edwards

Greg McNevin : Open Document Foundation Abandons Namesake, Closes up Shop - 0 views

www.idm.net.au/story.asp

cdf odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • The decision to go with CDF has left some industry commentators scratching their heads, with arstechnica.com’s Ryan Paul noting that the decision is curious as CDF doesn't support “the full range of functionality required for office compatibility”. Paul does add, however, that the formats broad use of formats such as XHTML and SVG does give it a compelling edge.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    The W3C's Chris Lilley, IBM and the lawyer for OASIS have been making quite a bit of noise claiming that CDF doesn't support "the full range of functionality required for office compatibility". 

    This a strange claim, especially when considering IBM as the primary source.  CDF WiCD Full 1.0 is a desktop profile for CDF.  Other profiles include WICD Mobile and WICD Core.  The call for implementations for WICD core, mobile and full went out on Monday, November 12, 2007. 

    To understand cdf, one must first get a handle on the terms used to describe cdf technologies.
    ..... CDF= compound document formats
    ..... CDRF= compound document by reference framework
    ..... WICD = Web Integration Compound Document
    ..... CDR using WICD = Compound Document by Reference using a WICD profile, (Core, Full or Mobile)
    ..... Compound Document by Reference Framework 1.0
    ..... WICD Core 1.0
    ..... WICD Mobile 1.0 Profile
    ..... WICD Full 1.0 Profile

    The WICD Full 1.0 Profile is the "DESKTOP" profile for CDF.
    Some interesting Quotes:

    "WICD Full 1.0 is targeted at desktop agents".

    "The WICD Full 1.0 profile is designed to enable rich multimedia content on desktop and high capability handheld agents."

    From the Compound Document by Reference Use Cases and Requirements Version 1.0 :

    "The capability to view documents with preserved formatting, layout, images and graphics and interactive features such as zooming in and out and multi-page handling."

    "
    <
Gary Edwards

ODF and OOXML - The Final Act - 0 views

www.idm.net.au/story.asp

din fraunhofer harmonization iso odf ooxml opendocument openxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08 - Cached
  • The format war between Microsoft’s Open Office XML (OOXML) and the open source OpenDocument Format (ODF) has flared up again, right before the looming second OOXML ISO vote in March.
  • “ISO has a policy that, wherever possible, there should only be one standard to maximise interoperability and functionality. We have an international standard for digital documentation, ODF,” IBM’s local government programs executive Kaaren Koomen told AustralianIT.
  • ODF has garnered some criticism for being a touch limited in scope, however, one of its strengths is that it has already been accepted as a worldwide ISO standard. Microsoft’s format on the other hand, has been criticised for being partially proprietary, and even a sly attempt by the software giant to hedge its bets and get in on open standards while keeping as many customers locked into its solutions as possible.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08
       
      A "touch limited in scope"? Youv'e got to be kidding. ODF was not defined to be compatible with the billions of MSOffice binary (BIN) documents. Nor was it designed to further interoperability with MSOffice.
      Given that there are over 550 million MSOffice desktops, representing upwards of 95% of all desktop productivity environments, this discrepancy of design would seem to be a bit more than a touch limited in scope!
      Many would claim that this limitation was due to to factors: first that Microsoft refused to join the OASIS ODF TC, which would have resulted in an expanded ODF designed to meet the interoperability needs of the great herd of 550 million users; and second, that Microsoft refused to release the secret binary blueprints.
      Since it turns out that both IBM and Sun have had access to the secret binary blueprints since early 2006, and in the two years since have done nothing to imptove ODF interop and conversion fidelity, this second claim doesn't seem to hold much water.
      The first claim that Microsoft didn't participate in the OASIS ODF process is a bit more interesting. If you go back to the first OASIS ODF Technical Committee meeting, December 16th, 2002, you'll find that there was a proposal to ammend the proposed charter to include the statemnt that ODF (then known as Open Office XML) be compatible with existing file formats, including those of MSOffice. The "MSOffice" reference was of course not included because ODF sought to be application, platform and vendor independent. But make no mistake, the discussion that day in 2002 was about compatibility and the conversion of the legacy BIN's into ODF.
      The proposal to ammend the charter was tabled. Sun objected, claiming that people would interpret the statement as a direct reference to the BIN's, clouding the charter's purpose of application, platform and vendor independence. They proposed that the charter ammendment b
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08
       
      Will harmonization work? I don't think so. The problem is that the DIN group is trying to harmonize two application specific formats. OpenOffice has one way of implementing basic document structures, and MSOffice another. These differences are directly reflected in the related formats, ODF and OOXML. Any attempts to harmonize ODF and OOXML will require that the applications, OpenOffice and MSOffice, be harmonized! There is no other way of doing this unless the harmonized spec has two different methods for implementing basic structures like lists, tables, fields, sections and page dynamics. Not to mention the problems of feature disparities. If the harmonized spec has two different implementation models for basic structures, interoeprability will suffer enormously. And interoperability is after all the prupose of the standardization effort. That brings us to a difficult compromise. Should OpenOffice compromise it's "innovative" features and methods in favor of greater interoperability with MSOffice and billions of binary documents? Let me see, 100 million OpenOffice installs vs. 550 MSOffice installs bound to workgroup-workflow business processes - many of which are critical to day to day business operations? Sun and IBM have provided the anser to this question. They are not about to compromise on OpenOffice innovation! They believe that since their applications are free, the cost of ODF mandated "rip out and replace" is adequately offset. Events in Massachusetts prove otherwise! On July 2nd, 2007, Sun delivered to Massachusetts the final version of their ODF plug-in for MSOffice. That night, after reviewing and testing the 135 critical documents, Massachusetts made a major change to their ETRM web site. They ammended the ETRM to fully recognize OOXML as an acceptable format standard going forward. The Massachusetts decision to overturn th
  • ...1 more annotation...
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08
       
      The Burton Group did not recommend that ISO recognize OOXML as a standard! They pointed out that the marketplace is going to implement OOXML by default simply because it's impossible to implement ODF in situations where MSOffice dominates. ISO should not go down the slippery slope of recognizing application-platform-vendor specific standards. They already made that mistake with ODF, and recognizing OOXML is hardly the fix. What ISO should be doign is demanding that ODF fully conform with ISO Interoeprability Requirements, as identified in the May 2006 directive! Forget OOXML. Clean up ODF first.
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 08
     
    Correcto mundo! There should be only one standard to maximise interoeprability and functionality. But ODF is application specific to the way OpenOffice works. It was not designed from a clean slate. Nor was the original 2002 OpenOffice XML spec designed as an open source effort! Check the OOo source code if you doubt this claim. The ONLY contributors to Open Office XML were Sun employees! What the world needs is in fact a format standard designed to maximise interoperability and functionality. This requires a total application-platofrm-vendor independence that neither ODF or OOXML can claim. The only format that meets these requirements is the W3C's family of HTML-XML formats. These include advancing Compound Docuemnt Framework format components such as (X)HTML-5, CSS-3, XForms, SVG and SMiL.. The W3C's CDF does in fact meet the markeplace needs of a universal format that is open, unencumbered and totally application, platform and vendor independent. The only trick left for CDF is proving that legacy desktop applications can actually implement conversions from existing in-memory-binary-representations to CDF without loss of information.
Gary Edwards

ongoing · Life Is Complicated - 0 views

www.tbray.org/...Mixup

iso microsoft oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Fortunately for Microsoft, the DaVinci plugin is coming, which will enable Microsoft office applications to comply with ISO 26300. We all understand the financial issues that prompted the push to make OOXML a standard (see Tim's comment above and http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/2007/01/21/whose-finances-are-on-the-line/ for more on this) and ensure continued vendor lock-in. However, OOXML is not the answer.
  • ODF can handle everything and anything Microsoft Office can throw at it. Including the legacy billions of binary documents, years of MSOffice bound business processes, and even tricky low level reaching add-ons represented by assistive technologies.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Yes!  It's Da Vinci time.  I wonder if W^ has downloaded ACME 376 and taken the Da Vinci conversion engine out for a test run?  Belgium and Adobe took a look, and have expressed an interest in getting their hands on the ODF 1.2 version of Da Vinci.  California and Massachusetts have yet to comment about ACME 376, but of course they are also waiting for Da Vinci.

    I'll thank W^ for his kind comments, and make sure he knows about the ACME 376 proof of concept.  If DaVinci can hit perfect conversion fidelity with those billions of binary documents using XML encoded RTF, there is no reason why Da Vinci can't do the same with ODF.  We do however need ODF 1.2 to insure that perfect interoperability with other ODF ready applications.
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Yes!  It's Da Vinci time.  I wonder if W^ has downloaded ACME 376 and taken the Da Vinci conversion engine out for a test run?  Belgium and Adobe took a look, and have expressed an interest in getting their hands on the ODF 1.2 version of Da Vinci.  California and Massachusetts have yet to comment about ACME 376, but of course they are also waiting for Da Vinci.

    I'll thank W^ for his kind comments, and make sure he knows about the ACME 376 proof of concept.  If DaVinci can hit perfect conversion fidelity with those billions of binary documents using XML encoded RTF, there is no reason why Da Vinci can't do the same with ODF.  We do however need ODF 1.2 to insure that perfect interoperability with other ODF ready applications.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Yes!  It's Da Vinci time.  I wonder if W^ has downloaded ACME 376 and taken the Da Vinci conversion engine out for a test run?  Belgium and Adobe took a look, and have expressed an interest in getting their hands on the ODF 1.2 version of Da Vinci.  California and Massachusetts have yet to comment about ACME 376, but of course they are also waiting for Da Vinci.

    I'll thank W^ for his kind comments, and make sure he knows about the ACME 376 proof of concept.  If DaVinci can hit perfect conversion fidelity with those billions of binary documents using XML encoded RTF, there is no reason why Da Vinci can't do the same with ODF.  We do however need ODF 1.2 to insure that perfect interoperability with other ODF ready applications.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Hi guys,

    There is an interesting discussion triggered by Tim Bray's "ongoing · Life Is Complicated" blog piece.  Our good friend Mike Champion has some interesting comments defending ISO/IEC approval of MS Ecma 376 based on many arguments.  But this one seems to be the bottom line;

    <mike> "there is not an official standard for one that (in the opinion of the people who actually dug deeply into the question, and I have not) represents all the features supported in the MS Office binary formats and can be efficiently loaded and processed without major redesign of MS Office.

    ..... So, if you want a clean XML format that represents mainstream office document use cases, use ODF. If you want a usable XML foormat that handles existing Word documents with full fidelity and optimal performance in MS Office, use OOXML. If you think this fidelity/performance argument is all FUD, try it with your documents in Open Office / ODF and MS Office 2007 / OOXML and tell the world what you learn." </mike>

    Mike's not alone in this.  This seems to be the company line for Microsoft's justification that ISO/IEC should have two conflicting file formats each pomising to do the same thing, becaus eonly one of those formats can handle the bilions of binary documents conversion to XML with an acceptable fidelity. 

    This is not true, and we can prove it.  And if we're right  that you can convert the billions of binaries to ODF without loss of fidelity, then there was no "technology" argument for Microsoft not implementing ODF natively and becoming active in the OASIS ODF TC process to improve application interoperability.

    <diigo_
Gary Edwards

UseOffice. Net - A Modern Component to Accurately Convert Popular Office Formats - 1 views

www.sbwire.com/...sbwire-104408.htm

cloud-productivity desktop-productivity Document-Management-System

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Aug 11
     
    Cloud based Productivity Platforms and Document Management Systems just got a huge "integration with legacy desktop productivity environments"  boot from UseOffice. Net - a powerful component for integration of converting functions to Web-server ASP.NET and desktop applications Windows Forms applications for the platform of Windows, including the following versions: 2000, XP, Vista, 2008 Server, Seven. Applications built on the basis of this component, allow the user to quickly, and most importantly - accurately convert the formats DOC, DOCX, RTF, PPT, PDF, HTML, XHTML various documents - reports, forms, invoices, articles, forms, presentations, web pages etc. The converted documents are fully preserve the visual characteristics of the original, including elements of the structure and format, such as tables, font styles, colors, page margins, etc. UseOffice. Net Supports the following areas of transformation: - DOC to: html, xml, rtf, txt, pdf, docx - DOCX to: html, xml, rtf, txt, pdf, doc - HTML to: doc, rtf, txt, pdf - XLS to: html, xml, txt, csv, rtf, pdf - RTF to: html, xml, txt, doc, pdf - PPT to: html, xml, rtf, pdf, jpg, bmp, gif - XLSX to: html, xml, txt, csv, rtf, pdf Integrate the components into an application quickly and easily - just add a couple lines of code. The component is written in C # and requires the set. NET Framework and Microsoft Office (any version from 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, 2010). The following development environments: C #, VB.Net, J #, C + +. NET, Delphi.NET, ColdFusion 8, ASP.NET, and many others ... Combining ease of use and quality conversion UseOffice. Net allows you to set page numbers in the final document, orientation and page size settings for images and more necessary in the conversion.
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