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Gary Edwards

Office generations 1.0 - 4.0| Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: - 0 views

  • The key is to extend both functionality and interoperability without taking away any of the capabilities that users currently rely on or expect. Reducing interoperability or functionality is a non-starter, for the end user as well as the IT departments that want to avoid annoying the end user. You screw with PowerPoint at your own risk.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Exactly! This is also the reason why ODF failed in Massachusetts! Reducing the interoperability or functionality of of any workgroup related business process is unacceptable. Which is why IBM's rip out and replace MSOffice approach as the means of transitioning to ODF is doomed. The Office 2.0 (er 3.0) crowd is at a similar disadvantage. They offer web based productivity services that leverage the incredible value of web collaboration. The problem is that these collaboration services are not interoperable with MSOffice. This disconnection greatly reduces and totally neutralizes the collaboration value promise. Microsoft of course will be able to deliver that same web based collaborative comp[uting value in an integrated package. They and they alone are able to integrate web collaboration services into existing MSOffice workgroups. In many ways this should be an anti trust issue. If governments allow Microsoft to control the interop channels into MSOffice, then Microsoft web collaboration systems will be the only choice for 550 million MSOffice workgroup users. The interop layer is today an impossible barrier for Office 2.0, Web 2.0, SaaS and SOA competitors. This is the reasoning behind our da Vinci CDF+ plug-in for MSOffice. Rather than continue banging the wall of IBM's transition to ODF through government legislated rip out and replace mandates, we think the way forward is to exploit the MSOffice plug-in architecture, using it to neutralize and re purpose existing MSOffice workgroups. The key is getting MSOffice documents into a web ready format that is useful to non Microsoft web platform (cloud) alternatives. This requires a non disruptive transition. The workgroups will not tolerate any loss of interop or functionality. We believe this can be done using CDF+ (XHTML 2.0 + CSS). Think of it as cutting off the transition of existing workgroup business p
  • Microsoft sees this coming, and one of its biggest challenges in the years ahead will be figuring out how to replace the revenues and profits that get sucked out of the Office market.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Bingo!
  • The real problem that I see is the reduced functionality and integration. I don’t think there can be a Revolution until someone builds an entire suite of Revolutionary office products on the web. Office has had almost (or more than, don't quote me) 15 years of experience to build a tight cohesive relationship between it's products.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Rather than replace MSOffice, why not move the desktop bound business processes to the web? Re write them to take advantage of web collaboration, universal connectivity, and universal interop.
      Once the business processes are up in the cloud, you can actually start introducing desktop alternatives to MSOffice. The trick is to write these alternative business processes to something other than .NET 3.0, MS-OOXML, and the Exchange/SharePoint Hub.
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  • left standing in a few years will be limited to those who succeeded in getting their products adopted and imbedded into the customers 'workflow' (for lack of a better term) and who make money from it. A silo'ed PPA is not embedded in a company's workflow (this describes 95% of the Office 2.0 companies) thus their failure is predetermined. A Free PPA is not making money thus their failure is predetermined as well. For those companies who adapt to a traditional service and support model and make it through the flurry.....would they really qualify as Office 4.0?
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Spot on! Excellent comments that go right to the heart of the matter. The Office 2.0 crowd is creating a new market category that Microsoft will easily be able to seize and exploit when the time is right. Like when it becomes profitable :)
  •  
    In this 2006 article Nick Carr lays out the history of office productivity applications, arguing the Office 2.0 is really Office 3.0 - the generation where desktop productivity office suites mesh with the Web. This article is linked to The Office question, December 18, 2007
Gary Edwards

INTERVIEW: Craig Mundie -- Microsoft's technology chief, taking over from Bill Gates - 0 views

  • In this exclusive interview with APC, Mundie says the notion of all software delivered entirely through the web browser is now widely recognised as being 'popular mythology'. He also stakes the claim that Google's existence and success was contingent on Microsoft creating Windows. He talks about what's coming down the pipeline for future versions of Windows, and his belief that Windows can get still more market share than it has today. He also discusses the issues around the recent controversy over the Office Open XML file format.
  • So Vista is in its diffusion cycle and until there is enough of it out there, you won't really see the developer community come across.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Uh, the diffusion we really should be focused on involves the OOXML plug-in for MSOffice, IE 7.0, MSOffice 2007, and the Exchange/SharePoint Hub. 

      The Exchange/SahrePoint juggernaught is now at 65% marketshare, with Apache servers in noticeable decline.

      So it seems the improtant "diffusion" is going forward nicely.  The exploitation of the E/S Hub has also started, and here the Microsoft deelopers have an uncahllenged advantage.  Most of the business processes being migrated to the E/S Hub are coming off the MSOffice bound desktop.  Outsiders to the MS Stack do not have the requisite access to the internals that drive these MSOffice bound business processes, so they have little hope of getting into the "exploitation" cycle.

      This aspect was on full display at the recent Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.  The only way a O2 provider can position their service as a collaborative addon to existing business processes is to have some higher level of interop-integration into those processes beyond basic conversion to HTML.

      Most O2 operatives struggle to convince the market that an existing business process can be enhanced by stepping outside the process and putting the collaboration value elsewhere.  While this approach is disruptive and unfriendly, it tends to work until a more integrated, more interoperable coolaboration value becomes available.

      And that's the problem with O2.  Everyone is excited over the new collaboration possibilities, but the money is with the integration of collaborative computing into existing business processes.  This is a near impossible barrier for non Microsoft shops and would be competitors.  If you're Microsoft though, and you control existing formats, applications and processes, the collaboration stuff is simple value added on.  It's all low hanging fruit that Microsoft can get paid to deliver while O2 players struggle to f
  • So far, we have delivered about 60 million copies. That would represent about six per cent of the global Windows install base. So it has probably got to get up another few percentage points before you will start to see a big migration of the developer community.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      What is he talking about? Does a developer write to Vista? Or do they write to MS Stack ready .NET - OOXML-Smart Documents, XAML, Silverlight stuff?
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  • Rather, what will happen is that you'll have, a seamless integration of locally running software in increasingly powerful client devices (not just desktops) and a set of services that work in conjunction with that. A lot of what we are doing with the Live platform not only allows us to provide the service component for our parts, but also gives the abilities for the developer community to perfect their composite applications and get them deployed at scale.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Bear in mind that these "service components" are proprietary, and represent the only way to connect MS clients to the rest of the MS STack of applications.
  • Microsoft's business is not to control the platform per se, but in fact to allow it to be exploited by the world's developers. The fact that we have it out there gives us a good business, but in some ways it doesn't give us an advantage over any of the other developers in terms of being able to utilise it.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Oh right! The anti trust restrictions will not be lifted until November. Have to be careful here. But how is it Craig that non Microsoft devlopers and service providers will be albe to access and interoperate with important "service components"?
  •  
    Great inteview, i'll comment as i make my way down the page.  Hopefully others will do the same.
Gary Edwards

Microsoft Closer on \'Office Open\' Blessing - 0 views

  • Opponents to OOXML, which include IBM (Quote) and the Open Document Foundation, have argued that Microsoft's specifications are unwieldy and that the standard application is redundant with the Open Document Format (ODF), which already exists. Microsoft has countered that the OOXML format is valuable because it is closer to Office 2007 and is backwards-compatible with older versions of Office. "Although both ODF and Open XML are document formats, they are designed to address different needs in the marketplace," the company wrote in an open letter published earlier this month.
  •  
    Internet News is reporting that Ecma has submitted to the ISO/IEC JTC1 their repsonsess to the 20 "fast track" for Ecma 376 (OOXML) objections.  Nothing but blue skies and steady breeze at their back for our friends at Redmond, according to Ecma's rubber stamper in chief, Jan van den Beld.

    Once again there is that ever present drum beat from Microsoft that ODF can't handle MSOffice and legacy MSOffice features - including but not mentioned the conversion to XML of those infamous billions of binary documents:
    "Microsoft has countered that the OOXML format is valuable because it is closer to Office 2007 and is backwards-compatible with older versions of Office. "Although both ODF and Open XML are document formats, they are designed to address diffe
Gary Edwards

Internet Archive: Details: Eben Moglen Lecture Edinburgh June 2007 (Streaming Video 384... - 0 views

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    Eben explains that the process behind the GPL3 is actually a newly christened collaborative legislation process that uniquely supercedes nations, treaties and the traditions of legialative law making.  He traces the evolution of the disemination of ideas. the protection of ideas, and the rise of digitized representation - computerized ideas.

    It's a wonderfully sweeping speach that takes collaborative community possibilities far beyond the realm of software.  I'm left wondering if this same approach can be used to re invent the open standards process?   Just as big vendors have come to control and stifle innovation in software through the assertion of property ownership of mathmatical ideas, open standards are similarly under the command and control of these same big vendors. 

    The GPL3 process may in fact be a model for a new open standards process.  And it comes non too soon!

    ~ge~

Gary Edwards

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Fat Guy in Salesforce hell - Flock - 0 views

  • Second, don't underestimate the lock-in power that programs like Outlook and Excel and Quickbooks and Peachtree and their associated files still hold, particularly in smaller businesses. Someday we may have standard document formats and easily transportable data, but we don't yet. The competitive battle for the future of software is going to be fought out at the level of the Little Picture as much as at the level of the Big Picture. Lose sight of either one, and you'll be in trouble. In other words: It ain't over till the Fat Guy rants.
  •  
    Wow!  Another great quote from Nick.  When we were at the Office 2.0 Conference a few weeks ago, this was the problem every single collaborative computing initiative was facing.  Sure they had great collaborative efforts.  But these efforts were outside exisitng businesss processes and applications!  That's fine for kids and consumers.  But it's the kiss of death for enterprise, smb, and organizations with workgroup busines sprocesses based on MSOffice and Outlook.

    So no matter how innovative the WEb 2.0 - Office 2.0 - Enterprise 2.0 applications and services are, they are setting the marketplace for Microsoft to come in and take everything.  Because Microsoft and Microsoft alone ownes the interoperability - integration interfaces into MSOffice and Outlook, they are in a position to destroy any of the 2.0 players at will.  It's simply a matter of entering the space with their own 2.0 application or service.

    The more i see of this, the more convinced i am that the governemnts of the world are going to have to step in stop Microsoft's push to move from the desktop into server, device and web systems.

    ~ge~

Gary Edwards

Application Development Trends - TeamDrive Embraces ODF and OpenOffice.org - 0 views

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    Primesharing has announced an OpenOffice - ODF collaboration service.
Gary Edwards

Is HTML in a Race to the Bottom? A Large-Scale Survey of Open Web Formats - 0 views

  • The "race to the bottom" is a familiar phenomenon that occurs when multiple standards compete for acceptance. In this environment, the most lenient standard usually attracts the greatest support (acceptance, usage, and so on), leading to a competition among standards to be less stringent. This also tends to drive competing standards toward the minimum possible level of quality. One key prerequisite for a race to the bottom is an unregulated market because regulators mandate a minimum acceptable quality for standards and sanction those who don't comply.1,2 In examining current HTML standards, we've come to suspect that a race to the bottom could, in fact, be occurring because so many competing versions of HTML exist. At this time, some nine different versions of HTML (including its successor, XHTML) are supported as W3C standards, with the most up-to-date being XHTML 1.1. Although some versions are very old and lack some of the newer versions' capabilities, others are reasonably contemporaneous. In particular, HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 both have "transitional" and "strict" versions. Clearly, the W3C's intent is to provide a pathway to move from HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.1, and the transitional versions are steps on that path. It also aims to develop XHTML standards that support device independence (everything from desktops to cell phones), accessibility, and internationalization. As part of this effort, HTML 4.01's presentational elements (used to adjust the appearance of a page for older browsers that don't support style sheets) are eliminated in XHTML 1.1. Our concern is that Web site designers might decline to follow the newer versions' more stringent formatting requirements and will instead keep using transitional versions. To determine if this is likely, we surveyed the top 100,000 most popular Web sites to discover what versions of HTML are in widespread use.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      The summary statement glosses over the value of a highly structured portable XML document. A value that goes far beyond the strict separation of content and presentation. The portable document model is the essential means by which information is exchanged over the Web. It is the key to Web interop. Up till now, Web docuemnts have been very limited. With the advent of XHTML-2, CSS-3, SVG, XForms and CDF (Compound Document Framework for putting these pieces together), the W3C has provisioned the Web with the means of publishing and exchanging highly interactive but very complex docuemnts. The Web documents of the future will be every bit as complex as the publishing industry needs. The transition of complex and data rich desktop office suite documents to the Web has been non existent up till now. With ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML, Microsoft is now ready to transition billions of business process rich "office" documents to the Web. This transition is accomplished by a very clever conversion component included in the MSOffice SDK. MS Developers can easily convert OOXML documents to Web ready XAML documents, adn back again, without loss of presentation fidelity, or data. No matter what the complexity! The problem here is that while MSOffice-OOXML is now an ISO/IEC International Standard, XAML "fixed/flow" is a proprietary format useful only to the IE-8 browser, the MS Web Stack (Exchange, SharePoint, MS SQL, and Windows Server), and the emerging MS Cloud. Apache, J2EE, Mozilla Firefox, Adobe and Open Source Servers in general will not be able to render these complex, business process rich, office suite documents. MSOffice-OOXML itself is far to complicated and filled with MS application-platform-vendor specific dependencies to be usefully converted to Open Web XHTML-CSS, ePUB or CDF. XAML itself is only the tip of the iceberg. The Microsoft Web Stack also implements Silverlight, Smart Tags and other WPF - .NET
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    What makes the Internet so extraordinary is the interoperability of web ready data, content, media and the incredible sprawl of web applications servicing the volumes of information. The network of networks has become the information system connecting and converging all information systems. The Web is the universal platform of access, exchange and now, collaborative computing. This survey exammines the key issue of future interoperability; Web Document Formats.
Gary Edwards

A Closer Look At Those "Single Standard" Policy Mandates : Oliver Bell's weblog - 0 views

  • 2. Achieving interoperability is rarely as straight forward as selecting a single technical standard, and many of the policy positions around the world recognize this. Applications need to be designed to work together, groups need a solid framework for collaboration and the standards need to be ready to support these two objectives.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Hold on there Oliver. You've got the cart before the horse here. You say that, "standards need to be ready to support these two objectives". The objectives you sight are that of applications being desinged for interop (exchange) and collaboration. This observation is consistent with the vendor mantra coming out of Microsoft, Sun, and IBM: that interoperability is an application problem - not a standards issue. My view is that the only way we will have interoperability is if we design standards as totally application, platform and vendor independent. This demands a clean room approach, even to the extent of not allowing application vendors participation. At least not direct particpation where vendor business objectives might influence the standard. The first law of the Internet is that Interoperability rules. Interop must trump innovation. And innovation must be within the boundaries of the interoperability framework. Meaning, innovate on top of interop, but don't break that interop. Ever! This is exactly the opposite of how applications want to operate. They want innovation first, with interop as secondary feature based entirely on dooperative deals between vendors. That's not good enough for me or anyone else who believes that a universal fiel format is possible. The W3C approach is to focus entirely on the standards use requirements, completely shutting out application demands. With formats, this comes down to focusing on the basic document structures carried over from a few hundred years of document publication experience. The only proven formula for interop is to first write and establish the base standard. Then, let the applications adapt. Let the applications compete on how well they implement interoeprability standards, and build innovative features without disrupting or compromising that interop.
Gary Edwards

Vista and Office 2007 spin tales from the Underground | Channel Register - 0 views

  • Firstly it is a back end to what most people would traditionally think of as "Microsoft Office", i.e. the suite of desktop tools (Word, PowerPoint, Excel and so on). In this respect, it acts as a hub for collaboration, document storage/sharing, search and a range of other functions. However, SharePoint can also be used independently of the Office desktop components as a very respectable and capable portal environment for serving up either native .Net or composite applications to users through a browser.
  •  
    Excellent article about Vista and MSOffice "System" 2007 as development platforms.  The author provides one of the better explanations of how MSOffice 2007 and SharePoint "Hub" are connected and joined at the hip.  Hey, i invented tha tterm "Hub"!  Or so i thought.  I guess some things are just obvious.

    My use of the term "Hub" to describe an XML turnstile where backend information meges with portal interfaces, email, messaging, and document storage/collaboration goes back to the 2003 "Sales and Inventory" management system prototype we built for Comcast.  Desktops connect to the hub through XML documents, XForms and Jabber XMPP data binding, and browsers.  Great stuff - the way SOA should be done!

Gary Edwards

The City of Heerenveen turns OpenOffice.org into a Web 2.0 enterprise environment. - Flock - 0 views

  • “By migrating from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org we had to take our productivity environment to a higher level, so that the migration would not be perceived as a mere replacement but as a genuine improvement. The OpenOffice.org user doesn’t need to leave the OpenOffice.org application or start another application. This effectively eliminates the borders between template management and document collaboration for teams, projects and departments. We are focused on the user and on the usability of the applications we use. With O3Spaces Workplace we’ve found a fully integrated document management, collaboration environment that till now couldn’t be found on the market”, says Hiemstra.
Jesper Lund Stocholm

Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office: Move enhances customer... - 0 views

  • REDMOND, Wash. — May 21, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. is offering customers greater choice and more flexibility among document formats, as well as creating additional opportunities for developer and competitors, by expanding the range of document formats supported in its flagship Office productivity suite.
  • With the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) scheduled for the first half of 2009, the list will grow to include support for XML Paper Specification (XPS), Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A and Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1.
  • It will also allow customers to set ODF as the default file format for Office 2007. To also provide ODF support for users of earlier versions of Microsoft Office (Office XP and Office 2003), Microsoft will continue to collaborate with the open source community in the ongoing development of the Open XML-ODF translator project on SourceForge.net.
    • Paul Merrell
       
      The wookie here is the lack of native ODF support in older versions of MS Office, together with the earlier-announced intent to develop a new special API for other vendors to add native file suport via MS Office plug-ins. As part of its previous effort to backport OOXML support to earlier versions of Office and to port it to Office for the Mac, Microsoft engineers internally added OOXML support using the Office 2003 native file support to the Office 2003 native file support plug-in APIs, ripped it out of Office 2003 for Office 2007, wrapped it as a module with the same interface as the older APIs, then back and cross ported the module to the earlier versions and Office for the Mac. The new APIs for use by competitors must of necessity be integrated with the existing module. Anytime Microsoft needs to issue a bug fix for OOXML in the earlier versions, it would seem that the most efficient manner for Micriosoft to do so would be a patch for all versions that support OOXML. A patch that adds ODF support for the other Office versions would seem to be a fairly trivial task that could be rolled out with the patches that bring the older versions up to date with the final version of ISO/IEC OOXML In my view, the only conceivable reason for the new APIs is to limit the Office functionality available to competitors who write plug-ins for Office.
    • Jesper Lund Stocholm
       
      Another key point in the silver lining here is that Microsoft will add native support for ODF to Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 "and beyond". However support for ODF in previous versions of Microsoft Office will not be native but through the CleverAge Converter on SourceForge. It will in other words be XSLT-based translation of ODF to/from OOXML with the known issues with translation such as bad quality and performance. http://idippedut.dk/post/2008/05/Document-translation-sucks-(When-Rob-is-right2c-hes-right).aspx
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • “Microsoft’s support for ODF in Office is a great step that enables customers to work with the document format that best meets their needs, and it enables interoperability in the marketplace,” said Roger Levy, senior vice president and general manager of Open Platform Solutions for Novell Inc. “Novell is proud to be an industry leader in cross-platform document interoperability through our work in the Document Interoperability Initiative, the Interop Vendor Alliance and with our direct collaboration with Microsoft in our Interoperability Lab. We look forward to continuing this work for the benefit of customers across the IT spectrum.”
  •  
    Microsoft press announcement: REDMOND, Wash. - May 21, 2008 - Microsoft Corp. is offering customers greater choice and more flexibility among document formats, as well as creating additional opportunities for developer and competitors, by expanding the range of document formats supported in its flagship Office productivity suite.
  •  
    Microsoft press announcement: REDMOND, Wash. - May 21, 2008 - Microsoft Corp. is offering customers greater choice and more flexibility among document formats, as well as creating additional opportunities for developer and competitors, by expanding the range of document formats supported in its flagship Office productivity suite.
Gary Edwards

IDABC - EU: Microsoft's ODF-support draws mixed reactions - 1 views

  • Greve told the BBC that genuine adoption of ODF would give consumers more choice. "People will no longer need to use Microsoft Office in order to interoperate. People could switch to GNU/Linux and choose OpenOffice or other applications that support ODF, like Lotus Symphony or Google Docs."
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    This is nonsense. Whether an organizations standardizes on ODF or OOXML, the "interoperability" they seek will still be based on every desktop running the same application. Neither format enables the interchange of documents between different applications - even if those applications properly implement the format standard. Anyone can prove this for themselves. Simply shuttle a few OpenOffice ODF documents between Symphony, Novell Office and Google Docs. Then weep. At least with MSOffice-OOXMLyou can exchange documents between different versions of MSOffice. Even though OpenOffice, Symphony and Novell Office are based on the same code base, interop might as well be zero. Besides; what end users really want from a modern desktop office suite is collaborative editing of web ready documents. This discussion is so last century - 1995!
Gary Edwards

Google's Microsoft Fight Starts With Smartphones | BNET Technology Blog | BNET - 0 views

  •  
    .... "I recently described how Google's Wave, a collaboration tool based on the new HTML 5 standard, demonstrated the potential for Web applications to unglue Microsoft's hold on customers. My post quoted Gary Edwards, the former president of the Open Document Foundation, a first-hand witness to the failed attempt by Massachusetts to dump Microsoft and as experienced a hand at Microsoft-tilting as anyone I know......"
Gary Edwards

Open Sources | InfoWorld | While you were sleeping... (The Sharepoint Trojan Horse) | A... - 0 views

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    Matt Asay's commentary pointing out that the Microsoft monopoly is moving from the desktop to the SharePoint Server. Matt's cites a recent Wall Street Journal article as his reference. And both have it right except that i would have called this the Exchange/SharePoint Hub juggernaut.

    The idea is to migrate existing MSOffice bound business processes to the E/S Hub. From there, end user documents, collaboration and workflow interfaces are wired into Microsoft backends and web fronts (MS SQL Server, MS IIS, MS Active Directory, MS Dynamics, MS Communications Server, etc.)
Gary Edwards

Slamming the door shut on MS OOXML - 0 views

  • So your goal is a networked world where metadata is routinely trashed by apps developed by those who are too dumb or otherwise disabled to preserve metadata and only the big boys get to do interoperability, right? So if I send you a document for your editing, I can't count on getting it back with xml:id attributes intact. No thanks, Patrick. That sounds way too much like how things have worked ever since office productivity software first came on the market. In your world, interoperability belongs only to those who can map features 1:1 with the most featureful apps. And that is precisely why OpenDocument never should have been approved as a standard. Your kind of interoperability makes ODF a de facto Sun Microsystems standard wearing the clothing of a de jure standard. Why not just standardize the whole world on Microsoft apps and be done with it? Are two monopolies maintained by an interoperability barrier between them better than one? Fortunately, we don't have to debate the issue because the Directives resolve the issue. You lose under the rules of the game.
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    Marbux on metadata and the language of universal interoperability: Few people are aware of the raging debate that has pushed ODF to the edge. The OASIS ODF TC is split between those who support Universal Interoperability, and those who insist on continuing with limited ODF interoperability.

    ODF (OpenDocument), formally known as Open Office XML, began it's standards life in the fall of 2002 when Sun submitted the OpenOffice file format to OASIS for consideration as a office suite XML fiel format standard. The work on ODF did not start off as a clean slate in that there were near 600 pages of application specific specification from day one of the standards work. The forces of universal interop have sought for years to separate ODF from the application specific features and implementation model of OpenOffice that began with those early specification volumes, and continues through the undue influence Sun continues to have over the ODF specification work.

    Many mistakenly believed that submission of ODF to ISO and subsequent approval as an international standard would provide an effective separation, putting ODF on the track of a truly universal file format.

    Marbux is one of those Universal Interop soldiers who has dug in his heels, cried to the heavens that enough is enough, and demanded the necessary changes to ODF interoperability language.

    This post he recently submitted to the OASIS ODF Metadata SC is a devastating rebuttal to the arguments of those who support the status quo of limited interoperability.

    In prior posts, marbux argues that ISO directives demand without compromise universal interoperability. This demand is also shared by the World Trade Organization directives regarding international trade laws and agreements. Here he brings those arguments together with the technical issues for achieving universal interop.

    It's a devastating argument.

Gary Edwards

The Merging of SOA and Web 2.0: 3 - 0 views

  • the SOA world is we're reaching the services tipping point—from a focus on building services to consuming services. This has given rise to the mashup. A mashup is a flexible composition of services within a rich user interface environment."
    • Gary Edwards
       
      Bloomberg is on fire here!
  • "This is where the information assets and people productivity issues come together,"
    • Gary Edwards
       
      But does IBM have a stategy for SOA that includes Lotus Notes? Or will the MS Exchange/SharePoint OOXML juggernaut knock out the enterprise collaboration king?
Gary Edwards

Microsoft Partners with Atlassian & NewsGator - SharePoint Goes Web 2.0 - Flock - 0 views

  • 4) Linking; Within Confluence, users can access SharePoint document facilities. By including SharePoint lists and content within Confluence, users can (in a single click) edit Microsoft Office documents.
  •  
    Pay close attention here boys and girls because here it is.  Wonder why Microsoft is wealing, dealing and ready to shell out billions for Web 20 collaboration software?  It's to tie them into the MS Stack of MSOffice, IE, Exchange/SharePoint, MS LIve, MS Dynamics, MS SQL Server, etc.

    Grand convergence is the convergence of desktop, server, device and web systems.  It increasing looks like were going to have to live with the MS Stack and the Open Stack of grand convergence interoperability.  One will be able to have perfect interop within it's walls, with all applications able to handle the same compound XML document.  The other will be totally unable to implement an inteoperable version of MS-OOXML. 

    Members of the MS Stack will be able to access everything in the Open Stacks, but outside systems will have limited (crippled) access into the MS Stack.  Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.  Here we go again.

    ~ge~



Gary Edwards

Xandros, Inc. - Xandros to Provide Enhanced Interoperability Between Standardized XML D... - 0 views

  • Xandros, the leading provider of intuitive Linux solutions and cross platform interoperability tools, today announced it will join Microsoft and other companies to build and ship open source translators between documents stored in Ecma Office Open XML and Open Document Formats. The translators, being developed through the Open XML/ODF Translator project, will be made available to Xandros users via the Xandros Networks update facility. Every Xandros product that includes OpenOffice.org will be equipped with the translators. This announcement underscores the shared view of Xandros and Microsoft that competing office productivity applications should make it easy for customers to exchange files with one another and allow them to use their operating system and office productivity applications of choice. "This is good news for customers. Xandros and Microsoft share the view that competing office productivity applications should make it easy for customers to exchange files with one another," said Tom Robertson, general manager for Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft. "Mixed system environments are becoming more common, and we believe in delivering interoperability by design for the benefit of our customers. Our ongoing collaborative relationships with commercial open source companies like Xandros help us achieve that goal." "We are delighted to join forces with Microsoft and others to provide interoperability between standardized XML document formats," said Andreas Typaldos, Xandros CEO. "The work of the world is done using various document formats as well as operating systems, so it is vital to provide our customers with the means interoperate with ease in this diverse environment."
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    You have to read this!  Xandros is taking this interoperability garbage seriously!
Gary Edwards

Adobe's Latest Acquisition Creates Buzz Around Office Docs - Flock - 0 views

  • Adobe's foray into online productivity is unlikely to keep Microsoft's Steve Ballmer awake at night. But document sharing and collaboration features are central to Google's web-based office suite.
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    For a Web 2.0 application, Buzzword is very slick.  It's more sophisticated and feature rich than Glide Writer, which is also written on Adobe Flex.  Glide however offers an incredible array of portable office 2.0 features.  It's the whole enchilada.  And, Glide runs on iPhone!

    Another interesting plus for Glide is that Google uses Glide Presentations for their on line PowerPoint alternative.  Which is to say, Google is likely to purchase Glide while Adobe tries to build on Buzzword.

    One of the disturbing things for me is that Buzzword uses a proprietary file format!  In the future they will provide conversion to ODF, but that will probably be based on the OpenOffice conversion engine.  Which everyone in the Web 2.0, Office 2.0, enterprise 2.0 space uses.  Including Google.

    The thing is, the OpenOffice conversion engine lacks the conversion fidelity to crack into existing MSOffice bound business processes.

    Because they can't crack into these existing MSOffice bound business processes, the entire Office 2.0 sector is at risk.  All it takes is a competing entry from Microsoft, and the entire sector will ge twiped out by the superior interoperability - integration advantage to the MSOffice - Outlook desktop that Microsoft owns and carefully guards.

    Oh wait.  That just happened today with the announcement of MSOffice Live!  Suspiciously timed to take the oxygen out of Adobe's announcement too.

    ~ge~



Gary Edwards

Microsoft Will Support ODF! But Only If ISO Doesn't 'Restrict Choice Among Formats' - 0 views

  • By Marbux posted Jun 19, 2007 - 3:16 PM Asellus sez: "I will not say OOXML is easy to implement, but saying ODF is easier to implement just by looking at the ISO specification is a fallacy." I shouldn't respond to trolls, but I will this time. Asellus is simply wrong. Large hunks of Ecma 376 are simply undocumented. And what's more, absolutely no vendor has a featureful app that writes to that format. Not even Microsoft. There's a myth that Ecma 376 is the same as the Office Open XML used by Microsoft. It is not. I've spend a few hundred hours comparing the Ecma 376 specification (the version of OOXML being considered at ISO) to the information about the undocumented APIs used by MS Office 2007 that recently sprung loose in litigation. See http://www.groklaw.net/p...Rpt_Andrew_Schulman.pdf Each of those APIs *should* have corresponding metadata in the formats, but are not in the Ecma 376 specification.
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    Incredible comment by Marbux!  With one swipe he takes out both Ecma 376 and ODF. 

    Microsoft has written a letter claiming that they will support ODF in MSOffice, but only if ISO approves Ecma 376 as a second office suite XML file format standard.  ODF was approved by ISO nearly a year ago.

    Criticizing Ecma 376 is easy.  It was designed to meet the needs of  a proprietary application, MSOffice, and, to meet the needs of the emerging MS Vista Stack of applications that spans desktop to server to device to web platforms.  It's filled with MS platform dependencies that make it impossibly non interoperable with anything not fully compliant with Microsoft owned API's.

    Criticizing ODF however is another matter entirely.  Marbux points to the extremely poor ODF interoperability record.  If MOOXML (not Ecma 376 - since that is a read only file format) is tied to vendor-application specific MSOffice, then ODF is similarly tied to the many vendor versions of OpenOffice/StarOffice.

    The "many vendor" aspect of OpenOffice is somewhat of a scam.  The interoperability that ODF shares across Novell Office, StarOffice, IBM WorkPlace, Red Office, and NeoOffice is entirely based on the fact that these iterations of OpenOffice are based on a single code base controlled 100% by Sun.  Which is exactly the case with MSOffice.  With this important exception - MOOXML (not Ecma 376) is interoperable across the entire Vista Stack!

    The Vista Stack is comprised of Exchange/SharePoint, MS Live, MS Dynamics, MS SQL Server, MS Internet Server, MS Grove, MS Collaboration Server, and MS Active Directory.   Behind these applications sits a an important foundation of shared assets: MOOXML, Smart Documents, XAML and .NET 3.0.  All of which can be worked into third party, Stack dependent applications through the Visual Studio .NET IDE.

    Here are some thoughts i wou
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