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The king of clicks returns!  No doubt there was a time when the mere mention of ODF and the now legendary XML "document" format wars with Microsoft could drive click counts into the statisphere.  Sorry to say though, those times are long gone. It's still a good story though.  Even if the fate of mankind and the future of the Internet no longer hinges on the outcome.  There is that question that continues defy answer; "Did Microsoft win or lose?"  So the mere announcement of supported formats in MSOffice XX is guaranteed to rev the clicks somewhat. Veteran ODF clickmeister SVN does make an interesting observation though: "The ironic thing is that, while this was as hotly debated am issue in the mid-2000s as are mobile patents and cloud implementation is today, this news was barely noticed. That's a mistake. Updegrove points out, "document interoperability and vendor neutrality matter more now than ever before as paper archives disappear and literally all of human knowledge is entrusted to electronic storage." He concluded, "Only if documents can be easily exchanged and reliably accessed on an ongoing basis will competition in the present be preserved, and the availability of knowledge down through the ages be assured. Without robust, universally adopted document formats, both of those goals will be impossible to attain." Updegrove's right of course. Don't believe me? Go into your office's archives and try to bring up documents your wrote in the 90s in WordPerfect or papers your staff created in the 80s with WordStar. If you don't want to lose your institutional memory, open document standards support is more important than ever. "....................................... Sorry but Updegrove is wrong.  Woefully wrong. The Web is the future.  Sure interoperability matters, but only as far as the Web and the future of Cloud Computing is concerned.  Sadly neither ODF or Open XML are Web ready.  The language of the Web is famously HTML, now HTML5+

Well, not quite.  More IBM happy talk about interoperability and easy document interchange.  While i agree with the static versus interactive - collaborative document perspective, it's far more complicated. Today we have a world of "native"  docs and "visual" docs.   Native docs are bound to their authoring productivity environment, and are stubbornly NOT interchangeable.  Even for ODF and OOXML formats. Visual documents are spun from natives, and they are highly interchangeable, but interactively limited.  They lack the direct interaction of native authoring environments.  The Visual document phenomenon starts with PDF and the virtual print driver.  Any authoring application(s) in a productivity environment can print a PDF using the magic of the virtual print driver.   In 2008, when ISO stamped PDF with "accessibility tags", a new, highly interactive version of PDF was offically recognized.  We know this as "Tagged PDF".  And it has led the sweeping revolution of wide implementation of the paperless transaction process. The Visual Document phenomenon doesn't stop there.  The highly mobile WebKit revolution ushered in by the 2008 iPhone phenomenon led to wide acceptance of highly interactive and collaborative, but richly visual versions of SVG and HTML5-CSS3-JSON-JavaScript documents. Today we have SVG-HTML+ type visually immersive documents spun out of Server side publication presses such as FlipBoard, Cognito cComics, QWiki, Needle, Sports Illustrated, Push Pop Press, and TreeSaver to name but a few.   Clearly the visually immersive category of documents is exploding, but not for business - productivity documents.  Adobe has proposed a "CSS Regions" standard for richly immersive layout that might change that.  But mostly i think the problem for business documents, reports and forms is that they are "compound documents" bound to desktop productivity environments and workgroups. The great transition from desktop/workgroup productivity environme

Good article on the increasing use of HTML5 for business apps.  The focus is on mobile devices, even though HTML5 clearly targets anything capable of running a WebKit class browser.  The article also demonstrates, albeit unwittingly, the use of HTML5 as a cloud platform "Compound Document" model.  Something far more important than the comparatively limited focus of BI and CRM mobility apps.   A Cloud Producitvity Platform will replace the legacy Desktop Productivity Platform anchored on Microsoft's Windows-MSOffice workgroup networking.  Just as Compound Documents were the fuel of desktop productivity apps and services, a new breed of compound documents will fuel cloud productivity based workgroups.  The article even demonstrates the basics of embedding charts, interactive feeds, media  and database streams in HTML5 document interfaces.  Still missing real time messaging between apps, but clearly the HTML5 cloud compound document model has arrived. excerpt: HTML5 will lead to richer mobile BI and CRM apps that can be used across browsers and devices. HTML has evolved considerably since it was first mapped out by Tim Berners-Lee more than 20 years ago. Now we're up to HTML 5.0, which could have a significant effect on the business intelligence and CRM landscape.

Good discussion, but it really deserves a more in-depth thrashing.  The basic concept is that a perfect storm of mobility, cloud-computing and HTML5-JavaScript has set the stage for a major, massive shift in application development.  The shift from C++ to Java is now being replaced by a greater shift from Java and C++ to JavaScript-JSON-HTML5. Interesting, but i continue to insist that the greater "Perfect Storm" triggered in 2008, is causing a platform shift from client/server computing to full on, must have "cloud-computing".   There are three major "waves"; platform shifts in the history of computing at work here.  The first wave was "Mainframe computing", otherwise known as server/terminal.  The second wave was that of "client/server" computing, where the Windows desktop eventually came to totally dominate and control the "client" side of the client/server equation. The third wave began with the Internet, and the dominance of the WWW protocols, interfaces, methods and formats.  The Web provides the foundation for the third great Wave of Cloud-Computing. The Perfect Storm of 2008 lit the fuse of the third Wave of computing.  Key to the 2008 Perfect Storm is the world wide financial collapse that put enormous pressure on businesses to cut cost and improve productivity; to do more with less, or die.  The survival maxim quickly became do more with less people - which is the most effective form of "productivity".  The nature of the collapse itself, and the kind of centralized, all powerful bailout-fascists governments that rose during the financial collapse, guaranteed that labor costs would rise dramatically while also being "uncertain".  Think government controlled healthcare. The other aspects of the 2008 Perfect Storm are mobility, HTML5, cloud-computing platform availability, and, the ISO standardization of "tagged" PDF.   The mobility bomb kicked off in late 2007, with the introduction of the Apple iPhone.  No further explanation needed :) Th

Interesting stats coming out from the recent Forrester study on Office Productivity.  The study was conducted by Philipp Karcher, and it shows a fcoming collision of two interesting phenomenon that cannot continue to "coexist".  Something has to give. The two phenom are the continuing dominance and use of client/server desktop productivity application anchor, MSOffice, and, the continuing push of all business productivity application to highly mobile cloud-computing platforms.   It seems we are stuck in this truly odd dichotomy where the desktop MSOffice compound document model continues to dominate business productivity processes, yet those same users are spending ever more time mobile and in the cloud.  Something has got to give. And yes, I am very concerned about the fact that neither of the native XML document formats {used by MSOffice (OXML), OpenOffice and LibreOffice (ODF)} are designed for highly mobile cloud-computing.   It's been said before, the Web is the future of computing.  And HTML5 is the language of the Web.  HTML is also the most prolific compound-document format ever.  One of the key problems for cloud-computing is the lack of HTML5 ready Office Productivity Suites that can also manage the complexities of integrating cloud-ready data streams. Sadly, when Office Productivity formats went down the rat hole of a 1995 client/server compound document model, the productivity suites went right with them.  Very sad.  But the gaping hole in cloud-computing is going to be filled.  One way or the other.

Amazon releases a new version of the KF8 Format, with greatly improved HTML5-CSS3 capabilities.  Details of the KF8 spec can be found here: http://goo.gl/XY39v A couple of things i'm wondering about here.  One is, the KindleGen conversion tool can convert HTML, XHTML and EPUB to KF8.  Has anyone tried to push a OpenOffice XHTML compound document through this latest KF8 version of  KGen?  I'm thinking that perhaps the OOo HTML problem could be solved in this way? There is no doubt in my mind that HTML5 will continue to grow, and eventually replace the desktop XML "compound document" formats. The great transition from desktop client/server business productivity environments, where legacy compound documents rule the roost and fuel the engines of all business systems, to a Cloud Productivity Platform, will require an HTML5 compound document format model.  Also needed will be HTML5 capable applications participating in the production of Cloud ready compound documents.  Is KF8 a reasonable starting place? excerpt: Kindle Format 8 is Amazon's next generation file format offering a wide range of new features and enhancements - including HTML5 and CSS3 support that publishers can use to create all types of books. KF8 adds over 150 new formatting capabilities, including drop caps, numbered lists, fixed layouts, nested tables, callouts, sidebars and Scalable Vector Graphics - opening up more opportunities to create Kindle books that readers will love. Kindle Fire is the first Kindle device to support KF8 - in the coming months KF8 will be rolled out to our latest generation Kindle e-ink devices as well as our free Kindle reading apps.

Nice article from Scott M. Fulton describing Microsoft's iron fisted lock on government desktop productivity systems and the great transition to a Cloud Productivity Platform.  Keep in mind that in 2005, Massachusetts tried to do the same thing with their SOA effort.  Then Governor Romney put over $1 M into a beta test that produced the now infamous 300 page report written by Sam Hiser.  The details of this test resulted in the even more infamous da Vinci ODF plug-in for Microsoft Office desktops.   The lessons of Massachusetts are simple enough; it's not the formats or office suite applications.  It's the business process!  Conversion of documents not only breaks the document.  It also breaks the embedded "business process". The mystery here is that Microsoft owns the client side of client/server computing.  Compound documents, loaded with intertwined OLE, ODBC, ActiveX, and other embedded protocols and interface dependencies connecting data sources with work flow, are the fuel of these client/server business productivity systems.  Break a compound document and you break the business process.   Even though Massachusetts workers were wonderfully enthusiastic and supportive of an SOA based infrastructure that would include Linux servers and desktops as well as OSS productivity applications, at the end of the day it's all about getting the work done.  Breaking the business process turned out to be a show stopper. Cloud Computing changes all that.  The reason is that the Cloud is rapidly replacing client/server as the target architecture for new productivity developments; including data centers and transaction processing systems.  There are many reasons for the great transition, but IMHO the most important is that the Web combines communications with content, data, and collaborative computing.   Anyone who ever worked with the Microsoft desktop productivity environment knows that the desktop sucks as a communication device.  There was

One of the "Lessons of Massachusetts" is that the key lock-in point for Microsoft's monopoly is their iron fisted control of the productivity environment, anchored by MSOffice and the Windows local workgroup client/server system.  Key to office productivity is the compound document model that fuels every business process and business productivity system.  It's the embedded logic and database connectivity (OLE, ODBC, MAPI and COM ActiveX controls) that juice the compound document model.   Convert a compound document to another format (or PDF), and you BREAK the both the document, AND THE BUSINESS PROCESS!!!! It was the breaking of the business process that stopped Massachusetts from moving to the Open Document Format !!!! So now comes a story with consumer sales vs enterprise sales numbers that seemingly shatter the Lessons of Massachusetts.  How is that? My take is that the numbers Microsoft touts are true.  Consumers are making new purchases - NOT enterprises.  The simple truth is that, as Microsoft introduces new OS and Application Services geared to Mobile / Cloud Computing, these new systems BREAK legacy business systems.  It's still way too costly for businesses to transition to the new models. Eventually though, businesses will replace those legacy business productivity systems with Mobile / Cloud Computing systems.  And it will be a rip-out-and-replace transition; not the gradual "value-added" transition everyone hopes Microsoft will provide.   Interesting stuff. excerpt: "If Microsoft is an enterprise company, then why is it spending so much time and money on stuff like Bing, Xbox, Windows Phone, and the Surface RT? It should be going all-in on cloud computing and services. If you were to ask Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer, his answer would probably be: It's a dumb question, we're both. In an interview with Jason Pontin at MIT Technology Review, he said: ""Our number-one thing is supplying products to consumers. That's kind of what we do.

Note that rip-out-and-replace to get to the cloud is a very risky strategy for MSFT because the company forfeits its vendor lock-in advantage; the question for the enterprise then becomes "replace with what?" The answer in many cases will be non-Microsoft services. And traditionally, what the enterprise uses has driven what enterprise workers use at home far more than vice versa.

Fascinating conversation between Douglas Crockford and Jeremy Geelan. The issue is that XSS - the Cross Site Scripting capabilities of HTML. and "the painful gap" in the HTML5 specification of the itnerface between JavaScript and the browser. I had to use the Evernote Clearly Chrome extension to read this page. Microsoft is running a huge JavaScript advertisement/pointer that totally blocks the page with no way of closing or escaping. Incredible. Clearly was able to knock it out though. Nicely done! The HTML5-XSS problem is very important, especially if your someone like me that sees the HTML+ format (HTML5-CSS3-JSON-JavaScript-SVG/Canvas) as the undisputed Cloud Productivity Platform "compound document" model. The XSS discussion goes right to the heart of matter of creating an HTML compound document in much the same way that a MSOffice Productivity Compound Document worked. The XSS mimics the functionality of of embedded compound document components such as OLE, DDE, ODBC and Scripting. Crack open any client/server business document and it will be found to be loaded with these embeded components. It seems to me that any one of the Cloud Productivity Platform contenders could solve the HTML-XSS problem. I'm thinking Google Apps, Zoho, SalesForce.com, RackSpace and Amazon - with gApps and Zoho clearly leading the charge. Also let me add that RSS and XMP (Jabber), while not normally mentioned with JSON, ought to be considered. Twitter uses RSS to transport and connect data. Jabber is of course a long time favorite of mine. excerpt: The fundamental mistake in HTML5 was one of prioritization. It should have tackled the browser's most important problem first. Once the platform was secured, then shiny new features could be carefully added. There is much that is attractive about HTML5. But ultimately the thing that made the browser into a credible application delivery system was JavaScript, the ultimate workaround tool. There is a painful gap

Web site for Andreessen Horowitz VC. List of blogs for general partners. The reason for linking into a16z is the $11.2 Million they invested in Meteor! Meteor is awesome. My guess is that Meteor will provide a very effective Cloud platform to replace or extend the Windows Client/Server business productivity platform. Many VC watchers are wondering if a16z can recover the investment? Say what? IMHO this is for all the marbles. Platform is everything, and Cloud Computing is certain to replace Client/Server over time. Meteor just move that time frame from a future uncertainty to NOW. The Windows Productivity Platform has dominated Client/Server computing since the introduction of Windows 4 WorkGroups (v3.11) in 1992. Key technologies that followed or were included in v3.11 were DDE, OLE, MAPI, ODBC, ActiveX, and Visual Basic scripting - to name but a few. Meteor is an open source platform that hits these technologies directly with an approach that truly improves the complicated development of all Cloud based Web Apps - including the sacred Microsoft Cow herd of client/server business productivity apps. Meteor nails OLE and ODBC like nothing i've ever seen before. Very dramatic stuff. Maybe they are nailing shut the Redmond coffin in the process - making that $11.2 Mill a drop in the bucket considering the opportunity Meteor has cracked open. The iron grip Microsoft has on business productivity is so tight and so far reaching that one could easily say that Windows is the client in Client/Server. But it took years to build that empire. With this investment, Meteor could do it in months. Compound documents are the fuel in Windows business productivity and office automation systems. Tear apart a compound document, and you'll find embedded logic for OLE and ODBC. Sure, it's brittle, costly to develop, costly to maintain, and a bear to distribute. Tear apart a Meteor productivity service and you'll find the same kind of OLE-ODBC-Script

Neil McAllister provides an in-depth no-holds-barred comparison of Google, Zoho and Micorsoft Web Office Productivity Apps.  It's not pretty, but spot on honest.  Some of the short comings are that Neil overly focuses on document fidelity, but is comparatively light on the productivity environment/platform problems of embedded business logic.  These document aspects are represented by internal application and platform specific components such as OLE, scripting, macros, formulas, security settings, data bindings, media/graphics, applications specific settings, workflow logic, and other ecosystem entanglements so common to MSOffice compound "in-process" business documents.   Sadly, Neil also misses the larger issue that Microsoft is moving the legacy MSOffice Productivity Environment to a MS-Web center.   excerpt:  A spreadsheet in your browser? A word processor on the Web? These days, SaaS (software as a service) is all the rage, and the success of Web-based upstarts like Salesforce.com has sent vendors searching for ever more categories of software to bring online. If you believe Google, virtually all software will be Web-based soon -- and as if to prove it, Google now offers a complete suite of office productivity applications that run in your browser. Google isn't the only one. A number of competitors are readying Web-based office suites of their own -- most prominently Zoho, but even Microsoft is getting in on the act. In addition to the typical features of desktop productivity suites, each offering promises greater integration with the Web, including collaboration and publishing features not available with traditional apps.

"We (Forrester) just published a report on the state of adoption of Office 2013 And Productivity Suite Alternatives based on a survey of 155 Forrester clients with responsibility for those investments. The sample does not fully represent the market, but lets us draw comparisons to the results of our previous survey in 2011. Some key takeaways from the data:   One in five firms uses email in the cloud. Another quarter plans to move at some point. More are using Office 365 (14%) than Google Apps (9%).  Just 22% of respondents are on Office 2013. Another 36% have plans to be on it. Office 2013's uptake will be slower than Office 2010 because fewer firms plan to combine the rollout of Office 2013 with Windows 8 as they combined Office 2010 with Windows 7. Alternatives to Microsoft Office show little traction. In 2011, 13% of respondents supported open source alternatives to Office. This year the number is just 5%. Google Docs has slightly higher adoption and is in use at 13% of companies. "

Interesting, but do they have a plan to implement ODBC at the Cloud level?  It's one thing to provide connectivity, exploration and analysis to non Cloud data and transaction servers.  And another to connect the data feeds into next generation compound documents.  Seems to me this is an effective first step, but the value remains elusive.  Left a comment on this page. exerpt: The startup's offering, which has not been released yet, will connect to data stored in databases as well as the web and other sources, and adds a visual discovery component to make it easy for users to parse through this data and make sense of the information. The beauty of ClearStory is that it allows businesses to analyze internal and publicly available data at the same time and make this data easy for the masses to understand.

"You have to think that the addition of apps to Office 365 is the continuation of the evolution of documents from static entities that only change when you change them, to living creations that that can update themselves. And by giving documents apps, Microsoft essentially is transforming documents into apps … all the while and not incidentally giving you, me, and any Joe Blow Nonprogrammer the ability to build things that only short years ago would have required extensive development. Not only is Microsoft is making office productivity tools more like the web, it's giving us the ability to create mashups of data and analysis and visualization on the fly. "

Wave has finally taken over gDOCS.  Entirely.  Are you paying attention Florian and Jason?  This is it.  Your ship has come in.  The final key for Google will be that of being able to work with native OOXML documents, in a Wave, without breaking them.  Round-trip of in-process compound business productivity documents is the last part of the puzzle Google needs to crack the mighty Microsoft monopoly. excerpt: "When we launched the new Google Docs last April, one of the big changes was moving comments to the sidebar and letting people reply to comments. Today, we're updating comments in Google Docs to facilitate rapid and seamless discussions and integrate with email in an intuitive way. Since there are a number of significant" improvements, this update is only available for newly created documents for now.

Good article describing Node.js.  The Node.js Summitt is taking place in San Francisco on Jan 24th - 25th.  http://goo.gl/AhZTD I'm wondering if anyone has used Node.js to create real time Cloud ready compound documents?  Replacing MSOffice OLE-ODBC-ActiveX heavy productivity documents, forms and reports with Node.js event widgets, messages and database connections?  I'm thinking along the lines of a Lotus Notes alternative with a Node.js enhanced version of EverNote on the front end, and Node.js-Hadoop productivity platform on the server side? Might have to contact Stephen O'Grady on this.  He is a featured speaker at the conference. excerpt: At first, Chito Manansala (Visa & Sabre) built his Internet transaction processing systems using the venerable Java programming language. But he has since dropped Java and switched to what is widely regarded as The Next Big Thing among Silicon Valley developers. He switched to Node. Node is short for Node.js, a new-age programming platform based on a software engine at the heart of Google's Chrome browser. But it's not a browser technology. It's meant to help build software that sits on a distant server somewhere, feeding an application to your PC or smartphone, and it's particularly suited to systems like the one Chito Manansala is building - systems that juggle scads of information streaming to and from other sources. In other words, it's suited to the modern internet. Two years ago, Node was just another open source project. But it has since grown into the development platform of the moment. At Yahoo!, Node underpins "Manhattan," a fledgling online service for building and hosting mobile applications. Microsoft is offering Node atop Windows Azure, its online service for building and hosting a much beefier breed of business application. And Sabre is just one of a host of big names using the open source platform to erect applications on their own servers. Node is based on the Javascript engine at th

Good interview with Charles Jolley - SproutCore - WebKit (met Charles at Web 2.0).  He has left Apple and started a SproutCore Web App development company called "Strobe".  Looking very good Charles! The Blended Brew Apps have become a preferred way of accessing information on mobile devices. But developers want to provide a unified experience, and that is why Jolley believes that we will soon have apps that use HTML5 inside a native app wrapper. "People are looking for an either/or solution, but it is not going to end up like that," he said. Think of Strobe's offerings as a way to create an experience that is a blend of HTML5 and native mobile apps. How this works is that an application is developed in HTML5 instead of proprietary formats. It is wrapped in a native app wrapper for, say, the iPhone, but when accessed through a web browser on a PC or any other device, like tablet, it offers the same user experience. This is a good way to solve a problem that is only going to get compounded many fold as multiple endpoints for content start to emerge. The co-existence of web and native apps also means content publishers need to think differently about content and how it is offered to consumers. The multiplicity of endpoints (iPhone, iPad, TV and PC) is going to force content producers to think differently about how they build the user experiences for different sets of screens. Jolley argues that the best way to do so is to stop taking a document-centric view that is part of the PC-era. In the touch-based mobile device era, folks need to think of ways to have a single technology stack married to the ability to create unique experiences for different devices. And if you do that, there is no doubt that HTML5 and native apps can live in harmony.

Incredible project exploring new methods of story telling that make full use of an emerging interactive, graphical and multimedia rich, extraordinarily visual Web platform.  Awesome use of Web technology and a great story to boot!   While the Snow Fall Project is hardly the first Visual Document, it's truly a landmark effort.  Hopefully the business process and systems editing tools for Web based Visual Productivity will not be far behind simple Visual Web publication tools. Marbux viewed the source code and pointed out the great efforts that the NY Times had gone to to provide cross browser compatibility.  That in turn reminded me just how close the world came to having Microsoft seize the Web and take control of its future.  A very close call if ever there was one.  Many thanks to Marc Andresssen and the Netscape investors for their heroic efforts to stop Bill Gates and his Microsoft monopoly.

Need to speak with Brian about this :)