The End of ODF & OpenXML - Hello ODEF! - 0 views
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Short slide deck of Barbara Held's February 28th, 2007 EU IDABC presentation. She introduces ODEF, the "Open Document Exchange Format" which is designed to replace both ODF and OpenOfficeXML. ComputerWorld recently ran a story about the end of ODF, as they covered the failure of six "legislative" initiatives designed to mandate ODF as the official file format. While the political treachery surrounding these initiatives is a story in and of itself, the larger story, the one that has world wide reverberations, wasn't mentioned. The larger ODF story is that ODF vendors are losing the political battles because they are unable to provide government CIO's with real world solutions. Here are three quotes from the California discussion that really say it all: "Interoperability isn't just a feature. It's the basic requirement for getting your XML file format and applications considered"..... "The challenge is that of migrating our existing documents and business processes to XML. The question is which XML? OpenDocument or OpenXML?" ....... "Under those conditions, is it even possible to implement OpenDocument?" ....... Bill Welty, CIO California Air Resource Board wondering if there was a way to support California legislative proposal AB-1668. This is hardly the first time the compatibility-interoperability issue has challenged ODf. Massachusetts spent a full year on a pilot study testing the top tier of ODF solutions: OpenOffice, StarOffice, Novell Office and IBM's WorkPlace (prototype). The results were a disaster for ODF. So much so that the 300 page pilot study report and accompanying comments wiki have never seen the light of day. In response to the disastrous pilot study, Massachusetts issued their now infamous RFi; a "request for information" about whether it's possible or not to write an ODF plugin for MSOffice applications. The OpenDocument Foundation responded to the RFi with our da Vinci plugin. The quick descriptio
Linux Foundation Legal : Behind Putting the OpenDocument Foundation to Bed (without its... - 0 views
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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.
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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
Comments on 'On the Office format wars' - 0 views
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A fatal flaw in your analysis By Marbux Posted Saturday 21st April 2007 08:15 GMT Your analysis contains a fatal flaw, Martin. That is your belief that adequate Microsoft XML <> OpenDocument translators will be available. In fact, all of the translators suck mightily and there is no prospect at all of them being perfected. The major problems are: (i) that Microsoft's XML formats seem deliberately designed to thwart their parsing with XPath, which is essential to XML transformations; (ii) that Microsoft's "XML" file formats include binary blobs, bitmasks, and multiple Windows and Microsoft dependendencies, all of which defy XML transformations; and (iii) OpenDocument assumes a richer page layout engine than Microsoft Word provides, so while DOCX can be completely mapped to ODT it is impossible to fully map in the other direction without declaring an MS Office interoperability subset of OpenDocument and ODF applications implementing a compatibility mode with reduced features. (That is more than somewhat ironic, given Microsoft's spin that it couldn't implement all of its features in OpenDocument. In fact, the exact opposite is true.) In fact, Steve Ballmer is on record as saying that the developers of the Novell-Microsoft-Clever Age plug-ins will not even attempt to achieve full fidelity file translations between the two formats. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2050848,00.asp?kc=EWEWEMNL103006EP17A Those translators achieve at best far less conversion fidelity than existing file conversion filters between OpenDocument and Microsoft binary file formats such as the OpenOffice.org conversion filters, which achieve only about 80 per cent fidelity. The file format cognescenti know this. See e.g., the paper by Gary Edwards and Sam Hiser included in this edition of the European Journal for the Informatics Professional. http://www.upgrade-cepis.org/issues/2006/6/up7-6Hiser.pdf (PDF). (Note that I contributed to that paper.) And as also detailed in that paper, what works well enough for some of us does not necessarily work well enough for all. Anything less than full fidelity data conversions is absolutely unacceptable in the context of wholly automated business processes and is in fact illegal in various contexts, including government records. So your thesis doesn't fly. In fact, I'd go so far as to bet that you have been suckered by the Microsoft spin doctors. Another indication is your depiction of the file format wars as being waged primarily between IBM and Microsoft, a recent theme of Microsoft's public relations machine. While it is seductive to believe that the controversy is just another chapter in the war between major competitors, the pro-ODF camp is far broader than IBM. For example, nearly 20 governments recently opposed fast track processing of Microsoft's draft standard at ISO. Do you believe they were all carrying water for IBM? Government bodies in more than 50 nations have chosen to adopt ODF. http://opendocumentfellowship.org/government/precedent And dozens of developers now support the OpenDocument standard in their applications. http://opendocumentfellowship.org/applications While IBM has had a noteworthy role in proliferating the OpenDocument formats, there is a movement without a recognizable leader in the industry. When it comes to vendor influence on things relevant to ODF, Sun Microsystem's far outshines IBM. But in fact, a core group of open standards and free and open source developers and advocates -- inside and outside government -- have played a far larger role. This is a customer-driven phenomenon, not a vendor-driven effort as you portray. So I will respectfully suggest that you reexamine your position on these issues. Reasonable minds can differ, but not on the grounds you advocate.
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Here we go again. A couple of boot lickin lackies at The Register make some moronic statements about the OpenDocument XML file format, and the portable document cognisceti experts come out of the wood work to set the record straight. I think it's a scam to get boost hits.
Once again Marbux hands out a major bitch splappin to Microsoft shills who have no idea what's coming. What a great job Marbox does, and does with a kind consideration that certainly isn't warranted given the idiocy of the main article. Where does the man's patience come from? I gave up long ago.
~ge~
Sun Supports OOXML as an ISO Standard? - 0 views
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Sun Microsystems Inc., largely considered an avowed opponent of Open XML because of its own development and support for the competing, ODF-based StarOffice suite, found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying Open XML -- albeit after some changes in the proposal are made.
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Quote: Sun Microsystems Inc., largely considered an avowed opponent of Open XML because of its own development and support for the competing, ODF-based StarOffice suite, found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying Open XML -- albeit after some changes in the proposal are made. "We wish to make it completely clear that we support DIS 29500 becoming an ISO Standard and are in complete agreement with its stated purposes of enabling interoperability among different implementations and providing interoperable access to the legacy of Microsoft Office documents," Jon Bosak, a Sun representative to V1, wrote in an e-mail to other committee members over the weekend. "Sun voted No on Approval because it is our expert finding, based on the analysis so far accomplished in V1, that DIS 29500 as presently written is technically incapable of achieving those goals, not because we disagree with the goals or are opposed to an ISO Standard that would enable them." Sun "found itself in the unexpected position of stating its support for ratifying OOXML"? What???? This is the official position of Sun?
For the near five years that i have been a member of the OASIS ODF TC, Sun has opposed
Game Over! Latest Draft of Mass. ETRM Includes OOXML - 0 views
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this new draft includes Microsoft's OOXML formats as an acceptable "open format."
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Game Over? Probably. I've been expecting Massachusetts to publicly revise the ODF mandate to include OOXML ever since Louis Gutierrez resigned in early October of 2006. That was as clear a signal that ODF had failed in Massachusetts as anyone needed.
The only surprise is that it took the new CIO, Beth Pepoli so long to make the announcement that OOXML would be recognized as an officially recognized open XML file format going forward.
Andy UpDegrove of course does his best to downplay the significance of this announcement. But how can this not be the deathnell for ODF?
The failure of ODF in Massachusetts has resulted in a world wide recognition that it is impossible to implement ODF.
This is exactly what happened to ODF mandate legislature in California. The CIO's in California uniformly rejected both ODF legislation and Sun's hapless effort to set up an ODF Pilot Study based on what had happened in Massachusetts. If Mass couldn't implement ODF, than they saw no reason for them to try.
And it does come down to "implementation".
Most people think the implementation of ODF is as easy as downloading OepnOffice and converting your legacy docuemnts to ODF as they are used. Simply fix the artifacts of conversion in process, and never look back. OOo is free. So what's not to like?
Well, the problem is that the world has fifteen plus years of building business processes, line of business integrated applications and other client/server integration on top of the MSOffice application suite. These business processes are bound hard to MSOffice.
So the barrier for OpenOffice and ODF is twofold. Any implementation of ODF must overcome both the binary documents conversion barrier, and, the MSOffice bound business process barrier.
The cost and disruption of a <font
'Custom XML' the key to patent suit over Microsoft Word | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com - 0 views
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The short version of the story so many are talking about today: A Texas judge is barring Microsoft from selling Microsoft Word due to alleged patent infringement and fining the Redmondians multiple millions as part of the case. But most synopses of the case seem to be omitting a key part of the ruling: the concept of “Custom XML.” According to the press release from the lawyers for plaintiff i4i: “Today’s permanent injunction prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML.” What is “Custom XML”? Is it a (supposedly) unremo
Microsoft Partners with Atlassian & NewsGator - SharePoint Goes Web 2.0 - Flock - 0 views
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4) Linking; Within Confluence, users can access SharePoint document facilities. By including SharePoint lists and content within Confluence, users can (in a single click) edit Microsoft Office documents.
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Pay close attention here boys and girls because here it is. Wonder why Microsoft is wealing, dealing and ready to shell out billions for Web 20 collaboration software? It's to tie them into the MS Stack of MSOffice, IE, Exchange/SharePoint, MS LIve, MS Dynamics, MS SQL Server, etc.
Grand convergence is the convergence of desktop, server, device and web systems. It increasing looks like were going to have to live with the MS Stack and the Open Stack of grand convergence interoperability. One will be able to have perfect interop within it's walls, with all applications able to handle the same compound XML document. The other will be totally unable to implement an inteoperable version of MS-OOXML.
Members of the MS Stack will be able to access everything in the Open Stacks, but outside systems will have limited (crippled) access into the MS Stack. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Here we go again.
~ge~
ODF and OOXML must converge!! AFNOR, the French Standards Body, announces proposals for... - 0 views
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AFNOR has recommended to ISO adopting an approach enabling it to guarantee – using ISO processes – mid-term convergence between Open Document Format (ODF) and OfficeOpen XML (OOXML), as well as the stabilisation of OOXML on a short-term basis.
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Firstly, to restructure the ECMA standard in two parts so as to differentiate between, on the one hand, a core of essential and simple functionalities to be implemented (OOXML-Core) and, on the other hand, all the additional functionalities required for compatibility with the stocks of existing office document files created by numerous users, which will be gathered within a package called OOXML-Extensions. Secondly, AFNOR proposes to take into account a full series of technical comments submitted to the draft in order to make OOXML an ISO document of the highest possible technical and editorial quality. Thirdly, it proposes to attribute to OOXML the status of ISO/TS for three years. Finally, AFNOR proposes to set up a process of convergence between ISO/IEC 26300 and the OOXML-Core. In order to achieve this, AFNOR will begin the simultaneous revision of ISO/IEC 26300 and of ISO/TS OOXML (subject to the latter being adopted after the aforementioned restructuring), so as to obtain the most universal possible single standard at the end of the convergence process. Any subsequent evolutions will be decided upon at ISO level and no longer at the level of such a group or category of players.
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French experts have determined that it is technically possible to converge ODF and MS-OOXML, into a single, revisable document format standard?
The plan has four parts:
"Firstly, to restructure the ECMA standard in two parts so as to differentiate between, on the one hand, a core of essential and simple functionalities to be implemented (OOXML-Core) and, on the other hand, all the additional functionalities required for compatibility with the stocks of existing office document files created by numerous users, which will be gathered within a package called OOXML-Extensions."
"Secondly, AFNOR proposes to take into account a full series of technical comments submitted to the draft in order to make OOXML an ISO document of the highest possible technical and editorial quality."
"Thirdly, it proposes to attribute to OOXML the status of ISO/TS for three years."
Fourth, "Finally, AFNOR proposes to set up a process of convergence between ISO/IEC 26300 and the OOXML-Core. In order to achieve this, AFNOR will begin the simultaneous revision of ISO/IEC 26300 and of ISO/TS OOXML (subject to the latter being adopted after the aforementioned restructuring), so as to obtain the most universal possible single standard at the end of the convergence process. Any subsequent evolutions will be decided upon at ISO level and no longer at the level of such a group or category of players."
So there you go. A solution that removes ODF and OOXML from the clam
FAA May Ditch Microsoft's Windows Vista And Office For Google And Linux Combo - Technol... - 0 views
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Bowen's compatibility concerns, combined with the potential cost of upgrading the FAA's 45,000 workers to Microsoft's next-generation desktop environment, could make the moratorium permanent. "We're considering the cost to deploy [Windows Vista] in our organization. But when you consider the incompatibilities, and the fact that we haven't seen much in the way of documented business value, we felt that we needed to do a lot more study," said Bowen. Because of Google Apps' sudden entry into the desktop productivity market
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The FAA issues their "NO ViSTA" mandate, hinting that it might be permanent if they can come up with MSOffice alternatives. They are looking at Google Apps!
Okay, so plan B does have legs. The recent failure of ISO/IEC to stand up to the recidivist reprobate from Redmond is having repercussions. Who would have ever thought ISO would fold so quickly without ceremony? One day there are 20 out of 30 JTCS1 national bodies (NB's) objecting to Micrsoft's proprietary XML proposal, the MOOX Ecma 376 specfication, and the next ISO is approving without comment the placing of MOOX into the ISO fast track where approval is near certain. With fast track, the technical objections and contradictions are assumed to be the provence of Ecma, and not the JTCS1 experts group.
Apparently the USA Federal Government divisions had a plan B contingency for just such a case. And why not? Microsoft was able to purchase a presidential pardon for their illegal anti trust violations. If they can do that, what's to stop them from purchasing an International Standard? Piece of cake!
But Google Apps? And i say that as one who uses Google Docs every day.
The problem of migrating away from MSOffice and MOOX to ODF or some other "open" XML portable file format is that there are two barriers one must cross.
The first barrier is that of converting the billions of MS binary docuemnts into ODF XML.
The second is that of replacing the MSOffice bound business processes that drive critical day to day business operabions.
Google Apps is fine for documents that benefit from collaborative computing activities. But there is no way one can migrate MSOffice bound business processes - the workgroup-worflow documents to Google Apps. For one thing Google Apps is unable to facillitate important issues like XForms. Nor can they round trip an ODF document with the needed fidelity a
Microsoft Suffers Latest Blow As NIST Bans Windows Vista - Technology News by Informati... - 0 views
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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.
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Excuse me! Excuse me! Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?
NiST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is authorized by the USA Department of Commerce.
Years ago, in conjunction with the Department of Defense (WWI), the Dept of Commerce joined with two manufacturing consortia to form ANSI. Int eh aftemath of WWII and the formation of ISO/IEC, the US Congress, at the behest of the Department of Commerce, authorized the NiST subdiary. NiST then authorized (and continues to oversee) ANSI to take on the USA representation at ISO/IEC.
ANSI in turn authorized INCITS to take on the ISO/IEC document processing specific standardization issues. It is INCiTS that represents the citizens on the ISO/IE SCT 1 workgroups (wk1) responsible for both ISO 26300 (OpenDocument - ODF) and Ecma 376 (MOOX).
Okay, so now we have the technical staffers at NiST refusing to allow purchases of Vista, MSOffice 2007 and IE 7.0. What's going on? And why is this happenign near everywhere at this exact same moment in time?
The answer is that this is clearly plan B.
Plan A was to force Microsoft to enable MSOffice native use of ODF. The reasoning here is that governments could force Microsoft to implement ODF, the monopolist control over desktops would be broken, and the the threat of MS leveraging that monnopoly into servers, devices and Internet systems be averted.
The key to this plan A was to mandate purchase requirements comply with Open Standards. And not just any "Open Standards". Microsoft had previously demonstrated how easy it was to use ECMA as rubber stamp for standards proposals that were anything but open. This is why in August of 2004 the EU asked the OASIS ODF Technical Committee to submit ODF to ISO/IEC. ISO had not yet been corrupted in the same way as the hapless money hungry ECMA.
Plan A was going along
Does ODF Have a Future? - 0 views
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This section of the Slashdot discussion of the LinuxWorld "Game Over" article concerns itself with RTF and Microsoft. ACME 376 "decodes" and converts MS RTF to XML encoded RTF. The full da Vinci process follows this chain: imbr<>MS RTF<>ACME 376<>InfoSet = output target file format MS RTF is the internal structuring stage that all in-memory-binary-representation are sent through with any conversion. Including the conversion of imbr to OOXML The OOXML plugin process looks like this: imbr<>MS RTF<>OOXML The da Vinci ODF process looks like this: imbr<>MS RTF<>ACME<>InfoSet<>ODF The da Vinci CDF process outputs to CDF instead of ODFThe reason we need to output to something other than ODF is that the OASIS ODF TC has no interest in provisioning the ODF specification with much needed iX "interoperability eXtensions". the iX eXtensions were designed to accomodate the high fidelity "round trip" conversion of existing MS documents to ODF while establishing a high level of interoperability with existing MS applications and workgroup processes.
[office] List Proposal Vote Deadline on Wednesday - 0 views
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The List Proposal donnybrook refuses to go away. In a recent argument concerning Rick Jellife's controversial post, "Harmonization by augmenting ODF with OOXML elements", ODF defender Bruce D'Arcus pointed to his own OASIS ODF TC message thread in an effort to defend Sun.
The issue is that Rick Jellife and others are wondering why it is that Sun opposes interoperability enhancements to ODF that would solve the problem of converting MS binary and XML documents to ODF, and back.
Bruce's reference introduces the incredibly acrimonious "List Proposal Vote Deadline" thread. He also brings up a really important problem. The ODF Charter does not reference compatibility with existing file formats as a key objective.
The consequences of this neglect in the ODF Charter is that every time the issue of compatibility with existing MS binary or xml documents comes up, Sun claims it's, "Outside the Charter and Out of Scope".
I've been hearing that excuse for the last five years!! Meanwhile, the world has discovered it's impossible to implement ODF without also having to totally rip out and replace MSOffice. And that means a costly re engineering all existing business processes, line of business integrated apps, and assistive technology add-ons.
ODF failed in Massachusetts because Sun and OASIS TC refused to recognize the importance of an ODF plugin for MSOffice offering the same high fidelity "round trip" conversion as the OOXML plugin for MSOffice.
For one reason or another, big ODF vendors are locked into a "rip out and replace - legislative mandate" strategy. A strategy to limit the interoperability of ODF with MS documents, applications, and processes has only one consequence. As Massachusetts proved to the world, ODF is impossible to implement if you have workgroups and business processes based
Slashdot | Pro-ODF Legislation Loses In Six States - 0 views
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If this is the case then it greatly increases the scope of the bill from being a simple switch from MS Office to OpenOffice to a massive effort involving the definition of many new XML schemata, developing, testing and debugging software to handle the new schemata, creation of documentation, deployment of and training for the new software, etc., etc.
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Another document format is not needed. This was already obvious before blogs took off, but to be promoting now is unforgivably stupid and irresponsible. Try and explain to an average person why all the typing they just did cannot even be viewed in a Web browser, they will not get it. Saving the user's typing as DOC or ODF is a con. The storage of text, styled text, graphics, photos, even movies (MPEG-4 H.264-AAC) has been solved. Your document format is ready it is HTML 4.01 Strict, CSS 2.1, and JS 1.5, there is nothing in the 1980's technology of MS Word that cannot be stored this way.
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Bravo! Here's someone who gets it. XHTML + CSS3 + RDFa + RDF/XML is the winner. ODF is tied to OpenOffice, Sun's machiavellian monopolist machinations, and bound to a desktop only implementation range that is so retro 1995. MOOXML of course is bound to the MS Vista Stack, where desktop, server, device and web informaiton are all interoperable if only your speak perfect MOOXML, XAML, Smart Tags, and .NET
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Wiki Rick Jelliffe - OOXML myths debunked? Up to our ears in ODF FUD - 0 views
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Additionally, ODF was not ratified with SVG, MathML, XLink, Zip and other W3C standards all together at the same time. Instead the prior W3C standards were already well established and approved in their own right and in their own time with the relevant experts of their specific domains vetting it. MSOOXML also incorporates proposed "standards" which failed in the marketplace and now is offered a "backdoor" to standardisation process by piggy backing this nebulous specification. (See VML vs SVG, and MathML vs Microsoft Office MathML) So there is a myth being built that ODF and its constituent parts are just as large as MSOOXML, and therefore MSOOXML is OK. I for one would rather MSOOXML be even larger; to cater for unknown tags like "lineWrapLikeWord6" or a Macro specification. However what troubles me is that the special relationship between Ecma and ISO should be abused with the fast tracking of this large specification.
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Yoon Kit brings up an interesting point about the ISO consideration of MSOOXML (Ecma 376); ISO approval of MSOOXML would backdoor a good many MS proprietary technologies that compete directly with W3C XML standards.
YK gives the example of MS VML, which competes with the W3C SVG standard used by ODF. He could have also cited that legacy versions of MSOffice (98-2003) make use of VML as the default graphic format, while MSOffice 2003 9with XML plugin) and MSOffice 2007 (by default) implements DrawingML as the replacement for VML.
So, would ISO approval of Ecma 376 backdoor VML and DrawingML in as "standards"? Or MSOffice MathML? One has to wonder since they are essential to MSOOXML.
Interoperability Enhancement Proposal: Suggested ODF1.2 items - 0 views
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Subject: Suggested ODF1.2 items From: "Florian Reuter" <freuter@novell.com> To: <office@lists.oasis-open.org> Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:03:24 +0100
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This is the fifth of the six major iX - interoperability enhancement proposals submitted to the OASIS ODF TC - SC between July 2006 and February of 2007. This particular iX proposal lead to the "List Enhancement Proposal" donnybrook that consumed the OASIS ODF TC for the next six months, ending with the OpenDocument Foundation being booted out of OASIS in May of 2007. The six iX proposals were all different approaches to the same basic problem: ODF was not desinged to be interoperable with MSOffice documents, applications or bound processes. The proposals come out of the OpenDocument' Foundation's efforts to save ODF in Massachusetts. ODF iX repressents a subset of ODF designed to grealty improve compatibility with MS binary and XML formats. With the ODF iX subset, the da Vinci plug-in would be able to convert the billions of MSOffice binary and xml documents with a very high level of fidelity, and do so within the bounds of "round trip" business processes. The most basic iX approach was to add five generic elements to the existing ODF specification. The five generic elements would cover lists, tables, fields, sections, and page dynamics (breaks). It is a well known fact that these five areas of incompatibility between OpenOffice ODF and MSOffice binaries represent 95% of all conversion fidelity problems. MSOffice has one way of implementing lists, and, OpenOffice has another. These application specific implementation models are irreconcilably different. It's also true that the applicaiton specific implementation models are directly reflected in each file format. So applications implementing ODF must also implement the OpenOffice model for lists, fields, tables, sections and page dynamics-page positioning if they are to have any meaningful measure of exchange fidelity. Perhaps the best of the iX approaches was that based on the innovative use of metadata to describe presentation-layout attributes.
INTERVIEW: Craig Mundie -- Microsoft's technology chief, taking over from Bill Gates - 0 views
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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.
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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.
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Uh, the diffusion we really should be focused on involves the OOXML plug-in for MSOffice, IE 7.0, MSOffice 2007, and the Exchange/SharePoint Hub.
The Exchange/SahrePoint juggernaught is now at 65% marketshare, with Apache servers in noticeable decline.
So it seems the improtant "diffusion" is going forward nicely. The exploitation of the E/S Hub has also started, and here the Microsoft deelopers have an uncahllenged advantage. Most of the business processes being migrated to the E/S Hub are coming off the MSOffice bound desktop. Outsiders to the MS Stack do not have the requisite access to the internals that drive these MSOffice bound business processes, so they have little hope of getting into the "exploitation" cycle.
This aspect was on full display at the recent Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. The only way a O2 provider can position their service as a collaborative addon to existing business processes is to have some higher level of interop-integration into those processes beyond basic conversion to HTML.
Most O2 operatives struggle to convince the market that an existing business process can be enhanced by stepping outside the process and putting the collaboration value elsewhere. While this approach is disruptive and unfriendly, it tends to work until a more integrated, more interoperable coolaboration value becomes available.
And that's the problem with O2. Everyone is excited over the new collaboration possibilities, but the money is with the integration of collaborative computing into existing business processes. This is a near impossible barrier for non Microsoft shops and would be competitors. If you're Microsoft though, and you control existing formats, applications and processes, the collaboration stuff is simple value added on. It's all low hanging fruit that Microsoft can get paid to deliver while O2 players struggle to f
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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.
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Microsoft Watch - Business Applications - Convergence=Integration - 0 views
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Microsoft significantly increases cross-integration of features with the company's other software. Microsoft acquired most of the products making up its Dynamics product line, and what a motley crew. New products and versions bring the Dynamics line more into the Microsoft family, in part by convergence—or increased integration with the company's other software.
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Thanks for the insightful commentary Joe. I see things a bit differently. Maybe my tin foil hat is wearing a bit tight these days, but i see MSOffice XML (MOOXML and the MOOXML binary InfoSet) as a very important aspect of how Microsoft integrates and leverages their desktop office monopoly power into server side and device systems. It is the combination of MOOXML and .NET that creates the integration mesh between desktop, server systems, and devices. Imagine every application or service participating in either a loosely coupled or carefully crafted information processing chain, being fluent in MOOXML, and able to process internal data structures and processing instructions unique to .NET. Enterprise systems and services from ORACLE, IBM and SAP will not have this same integration fluency. The design of ISO MOOXML is such that it would be impossible for <b>non Microsoft server and device systems</b> to match the quality and depth of integration with the 500 million desktops running MSOffice bound business processes. Given that MOOXML will probably succeed at getting ISO/IEC approval, removing the last "legal" barrier for this MOOXML Stack, were looking at a massive migration of MSOffice bound workgroup - workflow business processes to a new lockin point; The Exchange/SharePoint Hub. With the real estate industry, this migration to to E/S hosted applications only took six months to completely replace years of desktop productivity shrinkware dominance. The leap in productivity was spectacular. The downside of this migration is that the real estate industry is now tied into Microsoft at the critically important business process level. A binding that will perhaps last through the next fifteen years.
Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com - 0 views
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“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.”
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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
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The Merging of SOA and Web 2.0: 2 - 0 views
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In many cases, the mashups' data or information sources have incompatible formats so integration becomes a problem.
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Great article series from eWeek. A must read. But it all comes down to interoperability across two stack models: The Microsoft Vista Stack, and an alternative Open Stack model that does not yet exist!
Incompatible formats become a nightmare for the kind of integration any kind of SOA implementation depends on, let alone the Web 2.0 AJAX MashUps this article focuses on.
I wonder why eWEEK didn't include the Joe Wilcox Micrsoft Watch Article, "Obla De OBA Da". Joe hit hard on the connection between OOXML and the Vista Stack. He missed the implications this will have on MS SOA solutions. Open Source SOA solutions will be locked out of the Vista Stack. And with 98% or more of existing desktop business processes bound to MSOffice, the transition of these business processes to the Vista Stack will no doubt have a dramatic impact on the marketplace. Before the year is out, we'll see Redmond let loose with a torrent of MS SOA solutions. The only reason they've held back is that they need to first have all the Vista Stack pieces in place.
I don't think Microsoft is being held back by OOXML approval at ISO either. ISO approval might have made a difference in Europe in 2006, but even there, the EU IDABC has dropped the ISO requirement. For sure ISO approval means nothing in the US, as California and Massachusetts have demonstrated.
All that matters to State CIO's is that they can migrate exisiting docuemnts and business processes to XML. The only question is, "Which XML? OOXML, ODF or XHTML+".
The high fidelity conversion ratio and non disruptive OOXML plugin for MSOffice has certainly provided OOXML with the edge in this process. <br
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If MEOOXML (Microsoft-ECMA Office Open XML) can pass through the contradiction without complaint, the 6,000 page specification describing XML encoding of MSOffice specific binary processes gets to move on to the fast track phase.
This is very sneaky stuff. Micrsoft tried to submit MEOOXML to ISO in mid December. Perhaps in hopes of catching an extra 20 or so days of holiday right in the midst of the critical 30 day contradiction review period. Apparently the USA representative to ISO JTSC1 refused the submission until after the hollidays. Still, with near zero publicity, and 6,000 pages of crap to sludge through, the review phase has begun.
IMHO, only the ODF experts can effectively point out the ocntradictions and inconsistencies with the MEOOXML submission. So this is a call for Rob Weir, Florian Reuter, Patrick Durusau, Sam Hiser, David A Wheeler, Bruce D'Arcus, the legendary Daniel Vogelheim, and the infamous Marbux to step forward with the full force of their expertise.
Since Florian has the most experience with the hapless and tragically deceptive MS-Novel-CleverAge Translator Project, where the glaringly obvious contradictions and inconsistencies are being hastily pasted over, i'm anxious to see where his blog takes us:
http://florianreuter.blogspot.com/
~ge~