Open Web

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

Excellent explanation and review from the Tim Anderson. I wonder how i missed this? Here is the summary statement: "..... You can also extend XAML with custom objects. The main requirement is that classes used in XAML must have a parameterless constructor. The procedure is straightforward. Define a class; make sure your application has a reference to the assembly containing the class; then add a namespace declaration for the assembly. You can then define elements in XAML that map to your class, and at runtime these will become object instances. XAML has a curious story when it comes to formatted text, especially in Silverlight. In one sense it is rather limited. XAML has no understanding of common formats such as HTML, CSS or RTF, let alone the fancy new OOXML. Silverlight developers have to interact with the browser DOM in order to display HTML." "... No escaping it: Silverlight .XAP bundle preserves the original XAML. That said, XAML with WPF actually is a document format. The full WPF has an element called FlowDocument and rich formatting capabilities. Silverlight lacks FlowDocument, but does have a TextBlock with basic formatting options via the inline object. It also supports the Glyph element. This is interesting because it is the core element in XPS, Microsoft's invented-here alternative to Adobe's PDF." ".... XPS uses a subset of XAML to describe fixed layouts. In consequence, and with some compromises, you can use Silverlight to display XPS." "..... The bottom line is that XAML is a way of programming .NET declaratively. Its more intricate features improve the mapping between XAML and .NET. The result is we have design tools like Microsoft's Expression Blend and a clean separation between UI objects and program code, which is a considerable achievement." ".... As ever there's a downside, and with Microsoft it's the classic: this is thoroughly proprietary, and the schema issues make it difficult to validate with standard XML tools." No

More details on the new DoJ investigation, including confirmations from Google and Genentech.

Nice catch and cast from Michael Hickens. He walks us through some strange goings on at SalesForce.com. It seems Commander Benioff has ordered the good ship SlaesForce to turn on a dime, drop everything, and set a course for Wave. Good stuff: "...... Could Salesforce be reengineering its AppExchange platform to run standards-based code like HTML 5? The reason I ask is that none other than Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff listed his status on Facebook this weekend as: "working on salesforce.com's new architecture." There would have to be a very good reason, or a transformational event like Google's introduction of its Wave, for the company to change a key element of its strategy.

Dion Hinchcliffe has an excellent article casting Google Wave as an Enterprise game-changer. He walks through Wave first, and then through some important enterprise features: ".....to fully understand Google Wave, one should appreciate the separation of concerns between the product Google is offering and the protocols and technologies behind it, which are open to the Web community: Google Wave has three layers: the product, the platform, and the protocol: The Google Wave product (available as a developer preview) is the web application people will use to access and edit waves. It's an HTML 5 app, built on Google Web Toolkit. It includes a rich text editor and other functions like desktop drag-and-drop (which, for example, lets you drag a set of photos right into a wave). Google Wave can also be considered a platform with a rich set of open APIs that allow developers to embed waves in other web services, and to build new extensions that work inside waves. The Google Wave protocol is the underlying format for storing and the means of sharing waves, and includes the "live" concurrency control, which allows edits to be reflected instantly across users and services. The protocol is designed for open federation, such that anyone's Wave services can interoperate with each other and with the Google Wave service. To encourage adoption of the protocol, we intend to open source the code behind Google Wave.

The Justice Department's antitrust division is preparing to give a quick thumbs up to Oracle Corp.'s proposed $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems Inc., according to a lawyer briefed on the case. Swift approval surprises the many antitrust experts who predicted a long, scathing review. A difficult investigation was expected for two key reasons. First, Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney, who has a special area of expertise in high technology matters, rode into office promising vigorous antitrust enforcement. Second, skepticism lingers among DOJ staff about Oracle's business practices. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison thwarted the DOJ in 2004 when he defeated an attempt by the agency to block his purchase of rival PeopleSoft Inc.

Whoops. This is the better article! ZDNet got the dregs. CNET got the real thing: Google Native Client, HTML5, GWT, Wave, Web Worker Threads, webkit/chromium, Chrome, O3D "Google wants its Native Client technology to be a little more native. Google Native Client, still highly experimental, lets browsers run program modules natively on an x86 processor for higher performance than with Web programming technologies such as JavaScript or Flash that involve more software layers to process and execute the code. But to use it, there's a significant barrier: people must install a browser plug-in.

Good article from Stephen Shankland describing how the Wave-HTML5-O3D-Web Worker pieces fit. He left out GWT. But this after all, one very big picture. Google has thrown down a game changer. Wave represents one of those rare inflection points where everything immediately changes. There is no way to ignore the elephant that just sat on your face. Google has been demonstrating its sandboxing technology for making web applications perform at similar levels to those associated with native desktop applications. Google Native Client, still highly experimental, lets browsers run program modules natively on an x86 processor for higher performance than with web-programming technologies, such as JavaScript or Flash, that involve more software layers to process and execute the code. But to use it, there is a significant barrier: people must install a browser plug-in.

Oliver has a short post concerning Google Wave and the new world the Wave will have wrought. Once section in particular caught my eye:
Two behemoths going after each others markets
..."Google apps, while a very popular tool for students, has never caught on in the enterprise due to security concerns, with a few exceptions - Microsoft Office is the default in cubicle land. Google search meanwhile is currently the global market leader, and is a popular enterprise solution in the form of internal appliances behind the firewall, while Microsoft's search and associated electronically stored information taxonomy and tagging has been famously weak."
"While these two giants slug it out for the others coveted market the playing field may well change significantly as the third big internet revolution unfolds. We've gone from Web 1.0, the read only static html website world to Web 2.0, the read-write, 'user generated content' web. The explosion in interconnectedness is at the expense of information fragmentation: the third web generation (Web 3.0?) is all about the meaning and context of data and information.
"Behaviorally suggested content; the personalized experience of a web that seems to know you and anticipates what you want is just around the corner...."

A must-see video if you're interested in the dance of sugar plum documents, what can be done with HTML5-plus, and an outside-the-box approach to online collaboration. Google just may have a winner in Wave.

Page after page of links to experiments using advanced features of the Webkit-based Google Chrome. But update to Chrome 2.x before playing.

Flash just died. Webkit and HTML-plus are the winners.

Look for more Obama Administration antitrust policy announcements to flow from the June 3-5 conference announced here. This is the annual conference where antitrust policy changes can be announced to all competition regulators globally. The Obama Administration will not waste that opportunity.

With Documents To Go for the Google Android platform you get read, write, create and sync support for Word and Excel 2007 (OpenXML formatted) documents, support for receiving and sending attachments through Gmail and other applications (including the free RoadSync Exchange beta client, open password protected files, and view Word documents with track changes so you can see what others have done to your document. ZDNet reviewer Mathew Miller also recommends that people check out the details of the DataViz Intact Technology to see how documents will be handled to maintain file formatting and structure throughout the process of editing. There are two YouTube Video demonstations of "Documents to Go" running on an Android. ........ No collaborative editing with MSOffice desktops, but this is outstanding stuff.

"Never underestimate the web," says Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra in his keynote at Google I/O this morning..... Tim O'Reilly provides us with his play-by-play account of the Google I/O event. Amazing stuff. The Web has arrived and it is no longer the "network of networks". It's rather quickly becoming the mother of all platforms. Great coverage.

That article includes a link to an amazing web page, amazing if you've got a bleeding edge HTML 5 browser. http://htmlfive.appspot.com/ The browsers and versions needed are listed on that page. If you've got Google Chrome, upgrade to Chrome 2.0 (hot off the presses) from About Google Chrome (on the customization menu). Playtime with the bleeding edge of the Open Web.