Group items tagged

Interesting chart describes the massive transition of small and medium sized businesses to the Cloud.  Cloud based eMail and messaging leads the way.  Top two reasons for the great transition?  Cost reduction and productivity improvement. Unfortunately this article fails to describe what this great transition to the Cloud means to legacy productivity systems - most of which are provided and provisioned by Microsoft.  What happens to desktop and workgroup based business systems when the local data and transaction processing server systems are moved to the Cloud?  How are desktop and workgroup systems re written or migrated? Another factor missing from this article is any discussion of what happens to productivity when communications, content and collaborative computing are interoperably entwined throughout the application layer?  We know that the legacy Windows productivity platform seriously lacked communications capabilities.  This fact greatly reduced expected productivity gains.   excerpt: Microsoft commissioned the study of 3,000 small and medium sized businesses in 13 countries. The survey was conducted by Wayland, Mass.-based research firm Edge Strategies. The most commonly used cloud services are email, instant messaging, voice communications, and backup. Edge also looked at SMB cloud plans over the next three years and the same cloud services also are in the IT plans of those embracing the cloud. From this data, it certainly could be argued that SMBs seem to be quick to embrace the cloud in order to enhance communication. It makes sense: in small business, communication is key to ensure rapid growth. The biggest motivators for migration to the cloud among SMBs is to save money (54 percent), followed by increases in productivity. Decision makers also mentioned flexibility as a fairly common response. Of those already using the cloud, 59 percent reported productivity increases as a result. SMB cloud adoption begins to acclerate, study finds http:/

Quick review of different sync-share-store services, starting with DropBox and ending with three Open Source services. Very interesting. Things have progressed since I last worked on the SurDocs project for Sursen. No mention in this review of file formats, conversion or viewing issues. I do know that CrocoDoc is used by near every sync-share-store service to convert documents to either pdf or html formats for viewing. No servie however has been able to hit the "native document" sweet spot. Not even SurDocs - which was the whole purpose behind the project!!! "Native Documents" means that the document is in it's native / original application format. That format is needed for the round tripping and reloading of the document. Although most sync-share-store services work with MSOffice OXML formatted documents, only Microsoft provides a true "native" format viewer (Office 365). Office 365 enables direct edit, view and collaboration on native documents. Which is an enormous advantage given that conversion of any sort is guaranteed to "break" a native document and disrupt any related business processes or round tripping need. It was here that SurDoc was to provide a break-through technology. Sadly, we're still waiting :( excerpt: The availability of cheap, easy-to-use and accessible cloud file-sharing services means users have more freedom and choice than ever before. Dropbox pioneered simplicity and ease of use, and so quickly picked up users inside the enterprise. Similar services have followed Dropbox's lead and now there are dozens, including well-known ones such as Google Drive, SkyDrive and Ubuntu One. cloud.jpg Valdis Filks , research director at analyst firm Gartner explained the appeal of cloud file-sharing services. Filks said: "Enterprise employees use Dropbox and Google because they are consumer products that are simple to use, can be purchased without officially requesting new infrastructure or budget expenditure, and can be installed qu

Odd that the reporter mentions the importance of security near the top of the article but gives that topic such short shrift in his evaluation of the services. For example, "secured by 256-bit AES encryption" is meaningless without discussing other factors such as: [i] who creates the encryption keys and on which side of the server/client divide; and [ii] the service's ability to decrypt the customer's content. Encrypt/decryt must be done on the client side using unique keys that are unknown to the service, else security is broken and if the service does business in the U.S. or any of its territories or possessions, it is subject to gagged orders to turn over the decrypted customer information. My wisdom so far is to avoid file sync services to the extent you can, boycott U.S. services until the spy agencies are encaged, and reward services that provide good security from nations with more respect for digital privacy, to give U.S.-based services an incentive to lobby *effectively* on behalf of their customer's privacy in Congress. The proof that they are not doing so is the complete absence of bills in Congress that would deal effectively with the abuse by U.S. spy agencies. From that standpoint, the Switzerland-based http://wuala.com/ file sync service is looking pretty good so far. I'm using it.

It's game on between Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.  Interesting price configurations indicate that Cloud Computing is now a commodity.  One point in the article worth noting is that Cloud applications and services begin as "Cloud" apps - not desktop or client/server.  Bad news for Microsoft..... Excerpt: Microsoft, with its flagship operating system and rich line of related tools and applications, is watching the Windows developer community migrate to the cloud, but often not to its Azure cloud. AWS and Rackspace have offered cheaper raw online computing power. VMware-backed Cloud Foundry offers a development platform to build apps that can deploy on a number of vendors' clouds, and VMware recently made Cloud Foundry more Windows-friendly. Hewlett-Packard, which is just entering the cloud infrastructure market, is emphasizing its own development platform. To keep cloud app developers engaged, Microsoft must put the right resources on Azure's platform-as-a-service--developer tools, database services, and messaging services--but also make it affordable. Today's most creative new software projects often begin in a cloud, and a big reason is to keep startup costs low. Cloud computing is critical to the future of the Windows franchise.

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

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

Google "Innovation Nation" Conference in Washington, DC had an interesting conversation thread; that the move to Cloud Computing embraces a move for individual productivity to group productivity.  Not sure i agree with that.  The Windows Desktop-WorkGroup Productivity environment has dominated business since 1992.  Maybe Google might instead focus on the limited access of desktop workgroups and the fact that productivity was horribly crippled by the the PC's lack of communication.  The Web/Cloud magically combines and integrates communication with content and computation.  This is what makes cloud collaboration a genuine leap in productivity - no matter what the discipline.  Here's a question for Google: What's the productivity difference between desktop collaboration and cloud-collaboration? excerpt:  The meeting is the staple of corporate life. The whole day revolves around when a meeting will be, who will be there and what needs to be discussed. Yet, is this rote practice may have become counter-productive in today's world of the always on, always connected workplace. Google's enterprise vision is to leverage mobility and the cloud to change the fundamental way people work. Workforce productivity used to be about how you can optimize individual output. Take all those individuals, put their output together and have a meeting to sort it all out. Google thinks that by putting all that functionality into a cloud environment, workers can use whatever device they want and always be working as a group towards on the mission. A faster, more secure, more cost efficient workplace will be the result. "The main message is that to be an effective [enterprise], we need to change from individual productivity to group productivity,"

Cloud Computing White Papers   The Open Group Cloud Work Group exists to create a common understanding among buyers and suppliers of how enterprises of all sizes and scales of operation can include Cloud Computing technology in a safe and secure way in their architectures to realize its significant cost, scalability, and agility benefits. It includes some of the industry's leading cloud providers and end-user organizations, collaborating on standard models and frameworks aimed at eliminating vendor lock-in for enterprises looking to benefit from Cloud products and services. The White Papers on this website form the current output of the Work Group. They are also available in PDF form from The Open Group bookstore for download and printing. Further papers will be added as the Work Group progresses. The initial focus of the Work Group is on business drivers for Cloud Computing, and this is reflected in the first items to appear: The Business Scenario Workshop Report White Paper: Building Return on Investment from Cloud Computing White Paper: Strengthening your Business Case for Using Cloud White Paper: Cloud Buyers' Decision Tree White Paper: Cloud Buyers' Requirements Questionnaire Further White Papers will address other key Work Group topics, including Architecture, Infrastructure, and Security.

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.

Nice OpenMobster graphic!  Good explanation of the Android notification advantage over iOS and Windows 7 too.  Note the exception that iOS-5 finally introduces support for JSON. excerpt: Why Android Rocks the Cloud Most open source mobile-cloud projects are still in the early stages. These include the fledgling cloud-to-mobile push notifications app, SimplePush , and the pre-alpha Mirage  "cloud operating system" which enables the creation of secure network applications across any Xen-ready cloud platform. The 2cloud Project , meanwhile, has the more ambitious goal of enabling complete mobile cloud platforms. All of the above apps support Android, and many support iOS. Among mobile OSes, Android is best equipped to support cloud applications, said Shah. Android supports sockets to help connect to remote services, and supplies a capable SQlite-based local database. It also offers a JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) interchange stack to help parse incoming cloud data -- something missing in iOS. Unlike iOS and Windows Phone 7, Android provides background processing, which is useful for building a robust push infrastructure, said Shah. Without it, he added, users need to configure the app to work with a third-party push service. Most importantly, Android is the only major mobile OS to support inter-application communications. "Mobile apps are focused, and tend to do one thing only," said Shah. "When they cannot communicate with each other, you lose innovation." Comment from Sohil Shah, CEO OpenMobster: "I spoke too soon. iOS 5 now supports JSON out of the box. I am still working with a third party library which was needed in iOS 4 and earlier, and to stay backward compatible with those versions.  Anyways, it should have been supported a lot earlier considering the fact that AFAIK, Android has had it since the very beginning. "

Byron Deeter is right, but perhaps he's holding back on his reasoning.  Silicon Valley is all about platform, and platform plays only come about once every ten to twenty years.  They come like great waves of change, not replacing the previous waves as much as taking away and running with the future.   Cloud Computing is the fourth great wave.  It will replace the PC and Network Computing waves as the future.  It is the target of all developers and entrepreneurs.   The four great waves are mainframe, workstation, pc and networked pc, and the Internet.  Cloud Computing takes the Internet to such a high level of functionality that it will now replace the pc-netwroking wave.  It's going to be enormous.  Especially as enterprises move their business productivity and data / content apps from the desktop/workgroup to the Cloud.  Enormous. The key was the perfect storm of 2008, where mobility (iPhone) converged with the standardization of tagged PDF, which converged with the Cloud Computing application and data model, which all happened at the time of the great financial collapse.   The financial collapase of 2008 caused a tectonic shift in productivity.  Survival meant doing more with less.  Particularly less labor since cost of labor was and continues to be a great uncertainty.  But that's also the definition of productivity and automation.  To survive, companies were compelled to reduce labor and invest in software/hardware systems based productivity.  The great leap to a new platform had it's fuel; survival. Social applications and services are just the simplest manifestation of productivity through managed connectivity in the Cloud.  Wait until this new breed of productivity reaches business apps!  The platform wars have begun, and it's for all the marbles. One last thought.  The Internet was always going to win as the next computing platform wave.  It's the first time communications have been combined and integrated into content, and vast dat

"Gary Edwards on Mar 15, 8:25 PM said: There are only three apps i load at boot-up: gMail, gReader, and gWave. Ooops! Google Wave was cancelled over a year ago. Owning the end-users attention at boot-up proved to be an essential factor to the Microsoft monopoly. They built an iron fisted empire out of owning the point of boot-up. So it's very strange to see Google give up the very thing other cloud platform contenders would no doubt kill for. Very strange. Even stranger though is the perception that Google + will somehow now move to center stage? The only reason i use Google+ is because it's easy to point to an article and post a comment from Google Reader to my + circles. Other than that i have no use for +. Nicolas Carr posted an interesting comment on Google's cancellation of gReader yesterday. He tried to argue that there is a difference between "tools" and "platforms", and Google was more interested in building a platform than maintaining "tools" like gReader. So, Google+ is now essential to the Google Platform? Unfortunately, the otherwise brilliant and cosmic insightful Mr. Carr, fails to make that case. Microsoft became a platform when they succeeded in positioning their OS as the essential factor bridging an explosively innovative and rapidly commoditiz'ing Windows hardware reference platform, and, he equally rapid and innovative Windows software application platform. Both software and hardware were being written and developed to the Windows OS, with features doubling and costs being halved at a rate that even Moore's Law envied. Microsoft fully cemented the emerging hardware - OS - application platform with a business productivity environment that necessitated the use of the MS Office suite of servers and apps. That lock on business productivity has yet to be broken. And even though the mighty Google Apps has made some progress convincing businesses to rip-out-and-replace their legacy business productivity systems and re write to the Google Cloud P

OpenStack: The 5-minute Overview What the software does: The goal of OpenStack is to allow any organization to create and offer cloud computing capabilities using open source software running on standard hardware. OpenStack Compute is software for automatically creating and managing large groups of virtual private servers. OpenStack Storage is software for creating redundant, scalable object storage using clusters of commodity servers to store terabytes or even petabytes of data. Why open matters: All of the code for OpenStack is freely available under the Apache 2.0 license. Anyone can run it, build on it, or submit changes back to the project. We strongly believe that an open development model is the only way to foster badly-needed cloud standards, remove the fear of proprietary lock-in for cloud customers, and create a large ecosystem that spans cloud providers. Who it's for: Institutions and service providers with physical hardware that they'd like to use for large-scale cloud deployments. (Additionally, companies who have specific requirements that prevent them from running in a public cloud.) How it's being used today: Organizations like Rackspace Hosting and NASA are using OpenStack technologies to manage tens of thousands of compute instances and petabytes of storage. Timeline: Openstack was announced July 19th, 2010. While many components of OpenStack have been used in production for years, we are in the very early stages of our efforts to offer these technologies broadly as open source software. Early code is now available on LaunchPad, with an inital release for OpenStack Storage expected in mid-September and an initial release for OpenStack Compute expected in mid-October.

Lengthy discussion about Cloud computing innovation and interoperability.  Lots of quotes.  Looks like the consulting space for cloud computing is exploding.  No mention though of the great transition from Desktop/WorkGroup Productivity to Cloud/Web Productivity Platforms.  Obviously we need more experts :) excerpt: As the hype over cloud computing evolves into a more substantive discussion, one thing has become clear -- customers do not want to be locked into a single cloud provider. They would like the freedom to move among the clouds -- ideally from public to private and back again. This would give customers the freedom to switch providers as their computing needs grow or shrink, and the ability to move applications and workloads around as their business requirements change.

Today Microsoft announced an open source cloud collaboration that may surprise some people, but not our customers and partners who have relied on our interoperability solutions over the past few years. Today Microsoft announced that it has partnered with Cloud.com to provide integration and support of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V  to the OpenStack project, an open source cloud infrastructure platform. The Hyper-V addition provides enterprise customers running a mix of Microsoft and non-Microsoft technologies greater flexibility when using OpenStack. Until today, OpenStack only supported several open source virtualization products. Comment:  Microsoft needs to slow down Google and keep Apple's focus elsewhere.  Contributing a Windows only hypervisor to the OSS Cloud.com OpenStack project is one way Microsoft can hedge their own flailing Azure Cloud effort.  Read the Ray Ozzie good-bye letter.  The combination of Cloud, Web and Mobile Computing is the end of the Windows OS.

The General Services Administration made a bold decision to move its email and collaboration systems to the cloud.  This is a huge win for cloud-computing, but perhaps should have been expected since last week the Feds announced a new requisition and purchase mandate that cloud-computing had to be the FIRST consideration for federal agency purchases.  Note that the General Services Administration oversees requisitions and purchases for all Federal agencies!  This is huge.  Estimated to be worth $8 billion to cloud-computing providers. The cloud-computing market is estimated to be $30 Billion, but Gartner did not anticipate or expect Federal Agencies to embrace cloud-computing let alone issue a mandate for it.   In the RFP issued last June, it was easy to see their goals in the statement of objectives: This Statement of Objectives (SOO) describes the goals that GSA expects to achieve with regard to the 1. modernization of its e-mail system; 2. provision of an effective collaborative working environment; 3. reduction of the government's in-house system maintenance burden by providing related business, technical, and management functions; and 4. application of appropriate security and privacy safeguards. GSA announced yesterday that they choose Google Apps for email and collaboration and Unisys as the implementation partner. So what does this mean? What it means (WIM) #1: GSA employees will be using a next-generation information workplace. And that means mobile, device-agnostic, and location-agile. Gmail on an iPad? No problem. Email from a home computer? Yep. For GSA and for every other agency and most companies, it's important to give employees the tools to be productive and engage from every location on every device. "Work becomes a thing you do and not a place you go." [Thanks to Earl Newsome of Estee Lauder for that quote.] WIM #2: GSA will save 50% of the cost of email over five years. This is also what our research on the cost of email o

"Based on the results of this survey, it's clear that SMBs see the value of cloud-based solutions and are eager to benefit from a productivity and ROI perspective," said Fonality president and CEO Dean Mansfield. "Cloud-based communications tools in particular can be leveraged by companies to drive competitive differentiation while maximizing working capital." Minimizing total cost of ownership is the "ultimate goal" of adopting service-based offerings, according to survey results, while mobility and UC were recognized by a strong majority of those surveyed as key technologies to increase efficiency and profitability. Most respondents saw their current communications solutions as being "good," but 78 percent also seek to improve their capabilities. There was a very high amount of interest in cloud-based solutions and an "excellent prognosis" for cloud-based AaaS (Anything as a Service), with market opportunities still emerging "The needs of small and mid-size businesses differ significantly from large enterprises," said Steve Taylor, editor-in-chief and publisher for Webtorials, "This study shows that SMBs have a notable disposition to leveraging cloud-based technology to enhance their operations and their communications capabilities in particular."

Google paints a deceptive picture of security in a new default encryption service for customer data stored on Google Cloud Storage. See Google blog article linked from the bookmarked page. ITWorld goes part way in unmasking the deception but could have been far more blunt. The claimed fact that Google does not turn encryption keys over to the NSA, et ilk, is irrelevant if Google still decrypts the customer data upon NSA/FBI demand, which it very apparently does. But the Google blog article doesn't mention that and paints a picture seemingly intended to deceive customers into not encrypting their own data before parking it on Google Cloud Storage, thus aiding the NSA/FBI, et cet., in their surveillance efforts.  Deceptive advertising is a serious legal no-no. Hopefully, Google Cloud Storage users will be perceptive enough not to be misled by Google's advertising. But it's a sign that Google managers may be getting worried about losing customers to companies operating in nations that have far stronger protection for digital privacy than the U.S.

Good comparison of Microsoft and Google "Cloud" initiatives.  Sure, Microsoft has the numbers.  They own the legacy desktop productivity platform.  But their execution in the Cloud is horrific.  Businesses will always opt for integrating existing desktop apps with Cloud productivity systems over rip-out-and-replace platform alternatives.   But the benefits of highly interoperable and universally accessible Cloud communications and collaborative computing have to be there.  So far MS has failed to deliver, and miserably so.   excerpt:  With Office 365, Microsoft has finally delivered an end-to-end cloud platform for businesses that encompass not only its desktop Office software, but also its server software, such as Exchange and SharePoint. Contrary to Google's narrative, cloud based office software is still a wide open market. The three million businesses that have "Gone Google" - proclaimed on billboards in San Francisco airport's new Terminal 2 - are for the most part Gmail users, who are still happily using Microsoft Office and even Microsoft Outlook. Gmail is a fast, cheap, spam-free and great solution for business email, especially relative to the expensive, lumbering email service providers. Google Apps has definitely found a niche for online collaboration, but generally for low-end project management types of spreadsheets and small documents. The presentation and drawing Google Apps are barely used. Yes, there are definitely Google Apps wins, since it seems cheap. On implementation, businesses find that switching to Gmail is one thing, but switching their entire business infrastructure to Google Apps is a completely different animal that goes far beyond simply changing how employees are writing memos.

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.

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+