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Gary Edwards

Two weeks later: My switch from Outlook to Gmail | ZDNet - 0 views

www.zdnet.com/om-outlook-to-gmail-7000032955

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 14
     
    Two weeks later: My switch from Outlook to Gmail Summary: ZDNet's David Gewirtz has been using Gmail for two weeks after switching all his email from Outlook. After two weeks with Gmail as his primary mail environment, what's his verdict? It might surprise you. David Gewirtz By David Gewirtz for DIY-IT | August 26, 2014 -- 12:00 GMT (05:00 PDT) 28Comments 4 Votes inShare more + emptyinboxCan there be anything more relaxing than an empty inbox? Besides my car, wife, and puppy, of course. I have been using Gmail instead of Outlook for the past two weeks. And you know what? I couldn't be happier with it. Yeah, I didn't expect that, either. More on Gmail & Productivity Why I bit the bullet and finally switched from Outlook to Gmail Your questions answered: Why I switched from Outlook to Gmail I figured I'd be somewhat satisfied at best, but more probably I'd evidence the general level of disgruntlement most technology inspires in me. But no. I'm actually quite happy with Gmail. Fundamentally, the reason is simple: my email has been under control for two whole weeks. I can't remember when that was last the case, but it sure hasn't been for a few years, at least. Achieving Inbox Zero Within two days of moving to Gmail, I actually achieved Inbox Zero, that mythical state that described an inbox completely devoid of messages. Even more astonishing, I've managed to keep my inbox at Inbox Zero each day for the last few weeks. I attribute this to a number of factors, each of which I will enumerate here."
Gary Edwards

Microsoft Office 365 vs. Google Apps: The ultimate guide | Applications - InfoWorld - 0 views

www.infoworld.com/...apps-the-ultimate-guide-246585

wordsdk Office-365 Cloud-Productivity-Platform

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Aug 14
     
    "Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps have raised the bar for cloud productivity suites. Formerly pale shadows of available desktop programs, the two suites are now more than enough for many offices and businesses. But are they right for you? In this exhaustive review, InfoWorld covers multiple aspects of the cloud suites, starting with the many Office 365 SKUs and Google Apps for Business options and proceeding to: Setup Features Ease-of-use Administration Value InfoWorld examines all the details and fine points Microsoft and Google have to offer over the desktop suite -- and potential deal breakers for anyone considering the switch. If you've been thinking about breaking up with Microsoft Office on the desktop, this could be the time, but don't make any decisions before checking out InfoWorld's Microsoft Office 365 vs. Google Apps superguide. Download this PDF -- with InfoWorld's full and complete review, along with more expert advice -- for a handy rundown of both offerings and how they apply to your business. Office 365 and Google Apps have changed in the last couple of years. Find out if it's enough for your office to make the switch too. Download InfoWorld's Microsoft Office 365 vs. Google Apps superguide here."
Gary Edwards

Google Brings Native MS Office Editing Features To Its iOS Productivity Apps - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...y-apps-launches-slides-for-ios

wordSDK Office-365 Cloud-Productivity-Platform

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Google’s new Material Design user interface language and all the Microsoft Office conversion goodness the company acquired when it bought Quickoffice in 2012.
  • Google is closing the loop on bringing support for natively editing Microsoft Office files to all of productivity apps today.
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Aug 14
     
    "Google is closing the loop on bringing support for natively editing Microsoft Office files to all of productivity apps today. The company's iOS apps for Docs and Sheets are getting a couple of minor new features and design updates today, but most importantly, these apps will now also be able to natively open, edit and save files from Microsoft's Office suite. After launching the original standalone apps for Google Docs and Sheets on iOS a few months ago, it was only a matter of time before Google would also free its PowerPoint competitor Slides from the Google Drive app. Today is that day. Google Slides is now available as a standalone app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. 2014-08-25_1104Just like the Docs and Sheets apps and their counterparts on Android (the standalone Slides app launched there two months ago), the new Slides app will feature some aspects of Google's new Material Design user interface language and all the Microsoft Office conversion goodness the company acquired when it bought Quickoffice in 2012." ........................................................... Hey, Google is pulling the Cloud version of "bait and switch". The bait is calling a standalone application for iOS "native". The switch is that Microsoft is using the term "native" to describe the editing of MS Office native documents. Google is trying to market a native, written explicitly for iOS application, presenting it as "supporting native document editing and collaboration". Wow. They've got nothing!! This is just market spin. And the article's title suggests that they know exactly what they are doing with this egregious misrepresentation. There is no doubt in my mind that Microsoft has committed to the "Office 365 - native document" narrative. Its designed to totally obliterate Googe, Dropbox, Box, iCloud and anyone trying to offer Cloud based business solutions. They are going to crush Google, taking both Android and Booble Apps / GoogleDrive out of th
Gary Edwards

5 Things Microsoft Must Do To Reclaim Its Mojo In 2008 -- InformationWeek - 0 views

www.informationweek.com/...showArticle.jhtml

cdf ibm iso oasis odf ooxml opendocument openoffice sun symphony

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Instead of fighting standards, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) needs to get on board now more than ever. With open, Web-based office software backed by the likes of IBM (NYSE: IBM) (think Lotus Symphony) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) now a viable option, users—especially businesses frustrated by Microsoft's format follies (many are discovering that OOXML is not even fully backwards-compatible with previous versions of Microsoft Word)--can now easily switch to an online product without having to rip and replace their entire desktop infrastructure.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 08
       
      This article discusses how Microsoft might change their ways and save the company. This particular quote concerns Microsoft support for standards, and their fight to push MS OOXML through ISO as an alternative to ISO approved ODF 1.0.
      The thing is, ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents, of which there are billions. Nor was ODF designed to be implemented by MSOffice. ODF was designed exactly for OpenOffice, which has a differnet model for impementing basic docuemnt structures than MSOffice.
      So a couple of points regardign this highlight:
      The first is that IBM's Lotus Symphony is NOT Open Source. IBM ripped off the OpenOffice 1.1.4 code base back when it was dual licensed under both SSSL and LGPL. IBM then closed the source code adding a wealth of proprietary eXtensions (think XForms and Lotus Notes connections). Then IBM released the proprietary Symphony as a free alternative to the original Open Source Community "OpenOffice.org".
      If Microsoft had similarly ripped off an open source community, there would be hell to pay.
      Another point here is the mistaken assumption that users can easily switch from MSOffice to an on-line product like Google Docs or ZOHO "without having to rip our and replace their entire desktop infrastructure."
      This is a ridiculous assumption defied by the facts on the ground. Massqchusetts spent two years trying to migrate to ODF and couldn't do it. Every other pilot study known has experienced the same difficulties!
      The thing about Web 2.0 alternatives is that these services can not be integrated into existing business processes and MSOffice workgroup bound activities. The collaborative advantages of Web 2.0 alternatives are disruptive and outside existing workflows, greatly marginalizing their usefulness. IF, and that's a big IF, MSOffice plug-ins were successful in the high fidelity round trip conversion of wor
  • Microsoft in 2008 could make a bold statement in support of standards by admitting that its attempt to force OOXML on the industry was a mistake and that it will work to develop cross-platform compatibility between that format and the Open Document Format
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 08
       
      It's impossible to harmonize two application specific file formats. The only way to establish an effective compatibility between ODF and OOXML would be to establish a compatibility between OpenOffice and MSOffice.
      The problem is that neither ODF or OOXML were developed as generirc file formats. They are both application specific, directly reflecting the particular implementation models of OOo and MSOffice.
      Sun and the OASIS ODF TC are not about to compromise OpenOffice feature sets and implmentation methods to improve interop with MSOffice. Sun in particular will protect the innovative features of OpenOffice that are reflected in ODF and stubbornly incompatible with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents. This fact can easily be proven be any review of the infamous "List Enhancement Proposal" that dominated discussions at the OASIS ODF TC from November of 2006 through May of 2007.
      So if Sun and the OASIS ODF TC refuse to make any efforts towards compatibility and imporved interop with MSOffice and the billions of binary docuemnts seekign conversion to ODF, then it falls to Microsoft to alter MSOffice. With 550 million MSOffice desktops involved in workgroup bound business processes, any changes would be costly and disruptive. (Much to the glee of Sun and IBM).
      IBM in particular has committed a good amount of resources and money lobbying for government mandates establishing ODF as the accepted format. this would of course result in a massively disruptive and costly rip out and replace of MSOffice.
      Such are the politics of ODF.
Gary Edwards

Q&A: Nicholas Carr on the big switch to utility computing - 0 views

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

carr cloud switch utility web-platform

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 08 - Cached
  • I think we’re at the early stages of a fundamental shift in the nature of computing, which is going from something that people and businesses had to supply locally, through their own machines and their own installed software, to much more of a utility model where a lot of the computer functions we depend on are supplied from big, central stations, big central utilities over the Internet.
Gary Edwards

The real state of ODF Interoperability? There is none : Comments from the Northwest P... - 0 views

www.nwprogressive.org/...free-openofficeorg-writer.html

marbux odf ooxml interoperability

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 May 09 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 May 09
     
    Marbux nails it again in the comments section of this obscure review. In particular, he sites Shah, Rajiv C. and Kesan, Jay P., Lost in Translation: Interoperability Issues for Open Standards - ODF and OOXML as Examples (September 2008), Link to paper on SSRN (compatibility fidelity comparisons of ODF implementations testing only a very small set of word processing features). "...Switching documents, I go through similar travails with the published ODF 1.1 specification, using both the PDF and ODT versions. Bottom line: I can't get either document into WordPerfect X3 or X4 using any rich text format. So I convert the document to plain text using Symphony and get my work done. That is the real state of ODF interoperability. There is no such thing. But that does not stop the vested interests from claiming that there is. E.g.:"
Gary Edwards

Google should switch to ODF to gain market in Europe | The Mukt - 2 views

www.themukt.com/...-switch-odf-gain-market-europe

ODF OOXML Microsoft

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jul 14
     
    "Microsoft is definitely not happy with the UK government's decision to use ODF for government documents. The UK has made the right decision as Microsoft's file formats create a vendor lock where only Microsoft can offer software, cutting out every single player on planet earth. Microsoft works really hard to make its documents almost incompatible with every word processor out there. If you have created document in MS file formats, using Microsoft software, you have created document which will lose data if opened with non-Microsoft software. You may blame LibreOffice, openOffice, Calligra or Google Docs for 'losing some data', but the blame goes to Microsoft. So the best solution is to move away from Microsoft file-formats, so that you can break this vicious cycle. But how many people use ODF? Not many that I know of. The reason is simple, Microsoft pushes its own X formats which it claims to implement the OOXML specification. That's not surprising. What's surprising is that Google also pushes X formats and has one of the most pathetic supports for ISO approved open standards ODF."
Gary Edwards

We Can No Longer Unbundle Microsoft Office - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...cannot-unbundle-office-anymore

wordsdk Office-365 office-formats Office-Productivity

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • In 2007, productivity reached the cloud when the EU forced Microsoft to open the file formats to OpenXML and add an x at the end of our familiar file extensions .pptx, .xlsx and .docx. Google Docs also quickly floated cloud versions of each Office document format. However, in the same year, Apple launched iPhone without a view to file storage on the device. Since then a lot of startup innovation came from Dropbox and Box unbundling file storage from the OS, but software that enables the creation and editing of files on touchscreen devices has been less of a concern.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 11 Aug 14
       
      2007 was also the year that Apple released the first iPhone. ISO standardised PDF with a unique very valuable attribute; "tags". Tagged PDF raced into the mobility breach enabling all kinds of data binding and digital signature advances critical to mobile document centric workflows. In 2008 we saw a global financial collapse that put more pressure than ever on productivity. To survive, companies had to do more with less. Less people, less resources and less money. Cloud computing and mobility rose to the occasion, but the timing of the cloud tsunami connects the incredible synchronicity of XML compound document formats (business documents), Tagged PDF, the iPhone, and the financial collapse of 2008. The rise of sync-share-store services like DropBox is a natural replacement of the local, workgroup bound, client/server hard drive problem. Most importantly though, the iPhone is the first device to integrate and combine communications with computation. The data had to move to the Cloud before it could become useful to mobile apps combining for the first time, communications, content and computation is hand held devices. Anyone who ever worked in the Microsoft client/server productivity ecosystem will tell you that the desktop PC was totally lacking in "communications"; let alone the kind of integrated communications that the iPhone offers. It is the integration of communications, content and collaborative computation that will make the productivity of Cloud Computing something extraordinary.
  • Three years ago, CloudOn CEO Milind Gadekar started using OpenXML formats to bring Microsoft Office to iPad. Since then, the company opened its interface to file authoring tools from Office and Google Drive, and storage providers like Dropbox, Box and Hightail, Google Drive, and OneDrive, and will soon be hard at work adding Apple’s CloudDrive. CloudOn feels that if it focuses on providing the best compatibility and exportability across devices, then they can be the place where users can “preserve, render and manipulate” documents on mobile. Once CloudOn can maintain its goal of giving consumers a familiar look and feel and lossless publishing for all the most popular document creation and storage providers, they plan to optimize for touchscreens. CloudOn sees only single-digit-minute session times in files, so their next step is to enable gestures to edit charts and annotate text with your fingers to help make better use of that time.
  • Feature-bundled workflows to get things done on the device you’re looking at are necessities, not nice pairings like chocolate and peanut butter.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Pellucid Analytics takes a different strategy to rebuilding PowerPoint. Instead of looking at PowerPoint as a design tool, Pellucid fixes the design and enables archive search for thousands of financial accounting slide templates that an analyst would need to fill a pitch book such as ROE, EBITDA and other fun acronyms. Since the formatting is already set, analysts can just enter company names and based on the data sources that the bank they work for has licensed, Pellucid can fill in any of that data automatically and keep it up to date. However, the concept of live data in presentations is a shock to most bankers, so Adrian Crockett of Pellucid admits that it’s one of the first things he has to explain to new users. Of course, Pellucid offers the ability to snapshot data for use in later presentations. But Adrian stressed that in addition to Pellucid’s approach to removing grunt work for analysts, it is giving senior bankers access to live data right in the presentation that would normally require VPN access, logins, app switching and all other sorts of headaches to be able to access, especially on tablets.
Gary Edwards

Mass. Set to Mix Office With ODF - 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
  • Massachusetts last week officially confirmed that its executive agencies for now will continue using Microsoft Office instead of switching to alternative desktop applications. But by Jan. 1, in keeping with a controversial policy announced last year, the state plans to start adding plug-in software that will let its Office users create and save files in the industry-standard OpenDocument format.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    The August 28th, 2006 article about Massachusetts decision to use addon plugins.  ComputerWorld - Caarol Sliwa
Gary Edwards

Slashdot | Pro-ODF Legislation Loses In Six States - 0 views

it.slashdot.org/article.pl

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

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • 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.
  • 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.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      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
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Incredible.  The tile alone says it all.  And the poster commenting on IBM and secret disaster that happened in Massachusetts has it right.  I wonder who that commenter is anyway?
Gary Edwards

LOL :: Microsoft's Jean Paoli on the XML document debate - 0 views

www.itwriting.com/blog

cdf microsoft mooxml odf odf-ix officeopenxml opendocument paoli

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • What’s distinctive about the goals of OOXML? Primarily, to have full fidelity with pre-existing binary documents created in Microsoft Office. “What people want is to make sure that their billions of important documents can be saved in a format where they don’t lose any information. As a design goal, we said that those formats have to represent all the information that enables high-fidelity migration from the binary formats”, says Paoli. He mentions work with institutions including the British Library and the US Library of Congress, concerned to preserve the information in their electronic archive. I asked Paoli if such users could get equally good fidelity by converting their documents to ODF. “Absolutely not,” he says. “I am very clear on that. Those two formats are done for different reasons.” What can go wrong? Paoli gives as an example the myriad ways borders can be drawn round tables in Microsoft Office and all its legacy versions. “There are 100 ways to draw the lines around a table,” he says. “The Open XML format has them all, but ODF which has not been designed for backward compatibility, does not have them. It’s really the tip of the iceberg. So if someone translates a binary document with a table to ODF, you will lose the framing details. That is just a very small example.”
  • “Open Document Format and Office Open XML have very different goals”, says Paoli, responding to the claim that the world needs only one standard XML format for office documents. “Both of them are formats for documents … both are good.”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      The door should have been slammed shut on OOXML near five years ago when, on December 14th, 2006, at the very first OASIS ODF TC meeting, Stellent's Phil Boutros proposed that the charter include, "compatibility with existing file formats and interoperability with existing applications" as a priority objective.
  • I put it to Paoli that OOXML is hard to implement because of all its legacy support, some of which is currently not well documented. “I don’t believe that at all. It’s actually the opposite,” he says. He make the point that third parties like Corel, which have previously implemented support for binary formats like .doc and .xls, should find it easy to transition to OOXML. “We believe Open XML adoption by vendors like Corel will be very easy because they have already been doing 90% of the work, doing the binary formats. The features are already there.”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      WordPerfect does an excellent import of MSWord .doc documents. But there is no conversion! It's a read only rendering. Once you start editing the document in WP, all kinds of funny things happen, and the perfect fidelity melts away like the wicked witch of west in a bucket full of water.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Another benefit Paoli claims for OOXML is performance. “A lot of things are designed differently because we believe it will work faster. The spreadsheet format has been designed for very big spreadsheets because we know our users, especially in the finance industry, use very large spreadsheets.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Wrong. The da Vinci plug-in prototype we demonstrated to Massachusetts on June 19th, 2006 proved that there is little or no difference in spreadsheet performance between a OOXML file, and an ODF file.

      In fact, ODF version of the extremely large test file beat the OOXML load by 12 seconds.

      Where the performance difference comes in is at the application level. MS Excel can load a OOXML version of a large spreadsheet faster than OpenOffice can load an ODF version of that same spreadsheet.

      If you eliminate the application differential, and load the OOXML file and the ODF version of that same spreadsheet into a plug-in enabled Excel, the performance differences are negligible.

      The reason for this is that the OOXML plug-in for Excel has a conversion overhead identical to the da Vinci plug-in for Excel. It has nothing to do with the file format, and everythign to do with the application.

      ~ge~
  • Paoli points to the conversion errors as evidence of how poorly ODF can represent legacy Office documents. My hunch is that this has more to do with the poor quality of the converter.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Note that these OASIS ODF TC November 20th iX "interoperability enhancement" suggestions were submitted by Novell as part of their effort to perfect a OOXML plug-in for OpenOffice!!!!

      "Lists" were th first of these iX items to be submitted as formal proposal. And Sun fought that list proposal viciously for the next four months. The donnybrook resulted i a total breakdown of the ODF consensus process. But, it ensured that never again would anyone be stupid enough to challenge Sun's authority and control of the OASIS ODF TC.

      Sun made it clear that they would viciously oppose any other efforts to establish interoperability with existing Microsoft documents, applications, processes effort.

      Point taken.

      ~ge~
  • the idea that Sun is preparing a reference implementation of OOXML is laughable.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Sorry Tim. It's true. Sun and Novell are working together to develop native OOXML file support in OpenOffice. You can find this clearly stated in the Gullfoss Planet OpenOffice blogs.

      The funny thing is that Sun will have to implement and support the November 20th iX enhancements submitted by Novell!! (Or, the interoperability frameworks also submitted by Novell in February of 2007). There is simply no other way for OpenOffice to implement OOXML with the needed fidelity.

      ~ge~
  • One of new scenarios enabled by the “custom xml parts” (again, if you read their blogs, you must have heard of this stuff) is the ability to bind xml sources and a control+layout so that it enables the equivalent of data queries (we’ve had in Excel for many years already), just with a source which is part of the package, contrary to the typical external data source connection. Well this stuff, besides the declaration (which includes, big surprise, GUIDs and stuff like that) requires the actual Office 2007 run-time to work. So whenever MS says this stuff is interoperable, they cannot mean you can take this stuff away in another application. Because you can’t. This binding is more or less the same than the embedding of VBA macros. It’s all application-specific, and only Microsoft’s own suite knows how to instantiate this stuff.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      Stephan whacks this one out of the park! Smart Documents will replace VBa scripts, macros and OLE functionality going forward. It's also the data binding - workflow and metadata model of the future. And it's all proprietary!

      It's the combination of OOXML plus the MSOffice- Vista Stack specific Smart Documents that will lock end users into the Vista Stack for years to come.

      Watch out Google!

      ~ge~
  • Has Microsoft published the .doc spec publicly? Then why should ODF worry about the past? It’s not ODF’s concern to worry about Microsoft’s past formats. (Understand that the .doc format alone changed six times in the last eight versions of Office!) That’s Microsoft’s legacy problem, not ODF’s.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
       
      There really is no need to access the secret binary blueprints. The ACME 376 plug-in demonstration proves this conclusively. The only thing the ACME 376 demo lacks is that we didn't throw the switch on the magic key to release all VBa scripts, macros and OLE bindings to ACME. But that can be done if someone is serious about converting the whole shebang of documents, applications and processes.

      The real problem is that although ACME 376 proves we can hit the high fidelity required, it is impossible to effectively capture that fidelity in ODF without the iX interoperability enhancements. The world expects ODF interoperability. But as long as Sun opposes iX, we can't pipe from ACME 376 to ODF.

      ~ge~
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Tim Anderson interviews Microsoft's Jean Paoli about MOOXML and ODF.    Jean Paoli of course has the predictable set of answers.  But Tim anderson provides us with some interesting insights and comments of his own.  There is also a gem of a comment from Stephane Rodriquez, the reknown spreadsheet expert.

    The bottom line for Microsoft has not changed.  MOOXML exists because of the need for an XML file format compatible with the legacy of existing MSOffic ebinary documents.  He claims that ODF is not compatible, and offers the "page borders" issue as an example.

    Page borders?  What's that got to do with the ODF file format?   These are application specific, application bound proprietary graphics that can not be ported to any other application - like OpenOffice.  The reason has nothign whatsoever to do with ODF and everything to do with the fact that the page border library is bound to MSOffice and not available to other applications like OpenOffice. 

    So here is an application specific feature tha tJean Paoli claims can not be expressed in ODF, but can in MOOXML.  But when are running the da Vinci ODF plugin in MSWord, there is no problem whatsoever in capturing the page borders in ODF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  No problem!!!!!!!!!!

    The problem is opening up that same da Vinci MSWord document in OpenOffice.  That's where the page borders are dropped.  The issue is based entirely on the fact that OpenOffice is unable to render these MSWord specific graphics bound to an MSOffice only library.

    If however we take that same page border loaded da Vinci MSWord document, and send it half way across the world to another MSWord desktop running da Vinci, the da Vinci plugin easily loads the ODF document into MSWord where it is perfectly rendered, page borders and all!!!!!!!!

    Now i will admit that this is one very difficult issue to understand.  If not f
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Great interview. Tim can obviously run circles around poor Jean Paoli.
Gary Edwards

Is Open Source Dying? - 0 views

www.eweek.com/...0,1895,2148866,00.asp

iso linux odf ooxml open-source xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • But behind the scenes, things are not quite as rosy. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which lived up to its left-leaning credentials (didn't Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer famously upbraid open-source proponents for being Communists?) broke important ground by mandating that state agencies switch to open-source platforms. There's just one problem: They can't seem to manage the transition. Sources close to the situation tell me that former state CIO Peter Quinn's resignation happened at least in part because of delaying tactics by vendors who publicly support open source but do their best to scuttle it behind the scenes.
  • Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07
     
    Interesting topic which i've covered more fully with the OpenStack Blog : Connecting the Dots
Gary Edwards

What Might Hurt ODF? And It Is Not Another Office Format | iface thoughts - Flock - 0 views

ifacethoughts.net/...t-is-not-another-office-format

cdf odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 12 Dec 07 - Cached
  • A while back the OpenDocument Foundation folded up, withdrawing its support for the ODF in favor of CDF. The reason for the switch is buried in the details of ODF community’s denial to be fully interoperable with Microsoft Office, which might have helped in migrating to ODF without affecting the processes. So, there was something bigger here playing it up. Matt Assay notes that Microsoft Sharepoint might kill ODF more than anything else. It is the process stupid! People want to move to ODF, but without having to re-engineer their business processes.
Gary Edwards

Whoops?! IBM products support Microsoft's Open XML doc format! Lotushpere - 0 views

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

cdf ibm iso oasis odf ooxml opendocument openoffice sun symphony

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Nobody has invested more to defeat Microsoft Corp.'s Open XML document format than IBM Corp. So why is IBM supporting Open XML in a handful of its products? According to technical documentation on IBM's own Web sites, Big Blue already supports Open XML, the native file format of Microsoft Office 2007, in at least four of its software. However, Microsoft Office users interested in testing or switching to Lotus Symphony, IBM's upcoming challenger to Office, may be disheartened by signs that IBM won't budge from its stance that it will only support documents created in Office 2003 and prior versions.
Gary Edwards

A Fresh Cup » About - 0 views

afreshcup.com/?page_id=2

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Feb 08 - Cached
  • Then I got fed up with Microsoft. It took about fifteen years, but I finally reached the point where, no matter how good some of their software was, or how well-meaning some of the rank and file employees were, I could no longer stomach the corporate policies. You can read more about that in my posts What’s Going On Here?,  The Rest of the Story, and The Examined Software Life. Certainly, reasonable people can disagree on these things, but for me, working with Microsoft tools and technologies is no longer an option. So I quit.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 09 Feb 08
       
      Same here. For me the 1996 JavaONE Conference was a great reunion of former Windows - Microsoft Developer Network members i had not seen since the old OS2-Windows Conference days. It was clear to me then that much of the Internet wave surge back then was charged by developers and investors dissaffected with Microsoft and the Windows monopoly. What people at that first JavaONE Confernece were looking for was a means to convert the Interent into a full fledged computational platform; augmenting the ubiquitous communications, access and exchange grid with web ready applications. They sought an alternative to Windows platform development. One of the more prominent memes back then was provided by the rather small but vocal FOSS developers community attending the conference. They had this strong belief that much of the value of the Internet was captured in this phrase, "Owned by none, used by all". For anyone familiar with the abusive monopolist's tactics, the meme was quite resonant. So much so that the openness of Java became a serious issue dooging Sun for years. I've always thought Sun paid an iincredible price for the reprehensible business practices of Microsoft. In early times, Java would have rode the same wave of application developer take up that Windows enjoyed in the early 90's. The monopolist however had changed the rules forever. And that's actually a good thing. Thanks for writing about your journey Mike. I'm looking forward to your blogervations.
  • Perry Branch on 09 Feb 08
     
    Not specific to Document formatting, but a huge example of Microsoft vs. "The right thing". Read the three articles linked in the post.
  • Perry Branch on 09 Feb 08
     
    Talk about "Switch", this is incredible. Very interesting fellow and a good
Gary Edwards

What Cloud Means to Marketing Forecast - Nick Carr The Big Switch - 1 views

adage.com/...article

cloud-computing google grid-computing microsoft server-farms

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Mar 08 - Cached
  • The gorilla in this nascent market is Google. It has been spending billions of dollars to build huge data centers, or "server farms," around the world, enabling it to run all sorts of consumer software and store enormous quantities of personal data. Combine that processing muscle with the company's dominance of web searching and advertising, and you have a juggernaut capable of redefining the software business on the media model.
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