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Gary Edwards

Microsoft Watch Finally Gets it - It's the Business Applications!- Obla De OBA Da - 1 views

www.microsoft-watch.com/...obla_de_oba_da.html

odef odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument vista-stack

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Jul 07 - Cached
  • To be fair, Microsoft seeks to solve real world problems with respect to helping customers glean more value from their information. But the approach depends on enterprises adopting an end-to-end Microsoft stack—vertically from desktop to server and horizontally across desktop and server products. The development glue is .NET Framework, while the informational glue is OOXML.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      OOXML is the transport - a portable XML document model where the "document" is the interface into content/data/ and media streaming.

      The binding model for OOXML is "Smart Documents", and it is proprietary!

      Smart Documents is how data, streaming media, scripting-routing-workflow intelligence and metadata is added to any document object.

      Think of the ODF binding model using XForms, XML/RDF and RDFA metadata. One could even use Jabber XMP as a binding model, which is how we did the Comcast SOA based Sales and Inventory Management System prototype.

      Interestingly, Smart Documents is based on pre written widgets that can simply be dragged, dropped and bound to any document object. The Infopath applicaiton provides a highly visual means for end users to build intelligent self routing forms. But Visual Studio .NET, which was released with MSOffice 2007 in December of 2006. makes it very easy for application and line of business integration developers to implement very advanced data binding using the Smart Document widgets.

      I would also go as far to say that what separates MSOOXML from Ecma 376 is going to be primarily Smart Documents.

       Yes, there are .NET Framework Libraries and Vista Stack dependencies like XAML that will also provide a proprietary "Vista Stack" only barrier to interoperability, but Smart Documents is a killer.

      One company that will be particularly hurt by Smart Documents is Google. The reason is that the business value of Google Search is based on using advanced and closely held proprietary algorithms to provide metadata structure for unstrucutred documents.

      This was great for a world awash in unstructured documents. By moving the "XML" structuring of documents down to the author - workgroup - workflow application level though, the world will soon enough be awash in highly structured documents that have end user metadata defining document objects and
  • Microsoft seeks to create sales pull along the vertical stack between the desktop and server.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      The vertical stack is actually desktop - server - device - web based.  The idea of a portable XML document is that it must be able to transition across the converged application space of this sweeping stack model.

      Note that ODF is intentionally limited to the desktop by it's OASIS Charter statement.  One of the primary failings of ODF is that it is not able to be fully implemented in this converged space.  OOXML on the other hand was created exactly for this purpose!

      So ODF is limited to the desktop, and remains tightly bound to OpenOffice feature sets.  OOXML differs in that it is tightly bound to the Vista Stack.

      So where is an Open Stack model to turn to?

      Good question, and one that will come to haunt us for years to come.  Because ODF cannot move into the converged space of desktop to server to device to the web information systems connected through portable docuemnt/data transport, it is unfit as a candidate for Universal File Format.

      OOXML is unfi as a UFF becuase it is application - platform and vendor bound.

      For those of us who believe in an open and unencumbered universal file format, it's back to the drawing board.

      XHTML (XHTML CSS3 RDF) is looking very good.  The challenge is proving that we can build plugins for MSOffice and OpenOffice that can fully implement XHTML .  Can we conver the billions of binary legacy documents and existing MSOffice bound business processes to XHTML ?

      I think so.  But we can't be sure until the da Vinci proves this conclusively.

      One thign to keep in mind though.  The internal plugins have already shown that it is possible to do multiple file formats.  OOXML, ODF, and XML encoded RTF all have been shown to work, and do so with a level of two way conversion fidelity demanded by existing business processes.

      So why not try it with XHTML , or ODEF (the eXtended version of ODF en
  • Microsoft's major XML-based format development priority was backward compatibility with its proprietary Office binary file formats.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      This backwards compatibility with the existing binary file formats isn't the big deal Micrsoft makes it out to be.  ODF 1.0 includes a "Conformance Clause", (Section 1.5) that was designed and included in the specification exactly so that the billions of binary legacy documents could be converted into ODF XML.

      The problem with the ODF Conformance Clause is that the leading ODF application, OpenOffice,  does not fully support and implement the Conformance Clause. 

      The only foreign elements supported by OpenOffice are paragraphs and text spans.  Critically important structural document characteristics such as lists, fields, tables, sections and page breaks are not supported!

      This leads to a serious drop in conversion fidelity wherever MS binaries are converted to OpenOffice ODF.

      Note that OpenOffice ODF is very different from MSOffice ODF, as implemented by internal conversion plugins like da Vinci.  KOffice ODF and Googel Docs ODF are all different ODF implementations.  Because there are so many different ways to implement ODF, and still have "conforming" ODF documents, there is much truth to the statement that ODF has zero interoperabiltiy.

      It's also true that OOXML has optional implementation areas.  With ODF we call these "optional" implementation areas "interoperabiltiy break points" because this is exactly where the document exchange  presentation fidelity breaks down, leaving the dominant market ODF applicaiton as the only means of sustaining interoperabiltiy.

      With OOXML, the entire Vista Stack - Win32 dependency layer is "optional".  No doubt, all MSOffice - Exchange/SharePoint Hub applications will implement the full sweep of proprietary dependencies.    This includes the legacy Win32 API dependencies (like VML, EMF, EMF ), and the emerging Vista Stack dependencies that include Smart Documents, XAML, .NET 3.0 Libraries, and DrawingML.

      MSOffice 2007 i
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Microsoft's backwards compatibility priority means the company made XML-based format decisions that compromise the open objectives of XML. Open Office XML is neither open nor XML.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      True, but a tricky statement given that the proprietary OOXML implementation is "optional".  It is theoretically possible to implement Ecma 376 without the prorpietary dependencies of MSOffice - Exchange/SharePoint Hub - Vista Stack "OOXML".

      In fact, this was first demonstrated by the legendary document processing - plugin architecture expert, Florian Reuter.

      Florian has the unique distinction of being the primary architect for two major plugins: the da Vinci ODF plugin for MSOffice, and, the Novell OOXML Translator plugin for OpenOffice!

      It is the Novell OOXML Translator Plugin for OpenOffice that first demonstrated that Ecma 376 could be cleanly implemented without the MSOffice application-platform-vendor specific dependencies we find in every MSOffice OOXML document.

      So while Joe is technically correct here, that OOXML is neither open nor XML, there is a caveat.  For 95% of all desktops and near 100% of all desktops in a workgroup, Joe's statment holds true.  For all practical concerns, that's enough.  For Microsoft's vaunted marketing spin machine though, they will make it sound as though OOXML is actually open and application-platform-vendor independent.


  • Microsoft got there first to protect Office.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      No. I disagree. Microsoft needs to move to XML structured documents regardless of what others are doing. The binary document model is simply unable to be useful to any desktop- to server- to device- to the web- transport!

      Many wonder what Microsoft's SOA strategy is. Well, it's this: the Vista Stack based on OOXML-Smart Documents-.NET.

      The thing is, Microsoft could not afford to market a SOA solution until all the proprietary solutions of the Vista Stack were in place.

      The Vista Stack looks like this:

      ..... The core :: MSOffice <> OOXML <> IE <> The Exchange/SharePoint Hub

      ..... The services :: E/S HUb <> MS SQL Server <> MS Dynamics <> MS Live <> MS Active Directory Server <> MSOffice RC Front End

      The key to the stack is the OOXML-Smart Documents capture of EXISTING MSOffice bound business processes and documents.

      The trick for Microsoft is to migrate these existing business processes and documents to the E/S Hub where line of business developers can re engineer aging desktop LOB apps.

      The productivity gains that can be had through this migration to the E/S Hub are extraordinary.

      A little over a year ago an E/S Hub verticle market application called "Agent Achieve" came out for the real estate industry. AA competed against a legacy of twenty years of contact management based - MLS data connected desktop shrinkware applications. (MLS-Multiple Listing Service)

      These traditional desktop client/server productivity apps defined the real estate business process as far as it could be said to be "digital".  For the most part, the real estate transaction industry remains a paper driven process. The desktop stuff was only useful for managing clients and lead prospecting. No one could crack the electronic documents - electonic business transaction model.  This will no doubt change with the emer
  • By adapting XML
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      The requirements of these E/S Hub systems are XP, XP MSOffice 2003 Professional, Exchange Server with OWL (Outlook on the Web) , SharePoint Server, Active Directory Server, and at least four MS SQL Servers!

      In Arpil of 2006, Microsoft issued a harsh and sudden End-of-Life for all Windows 2000 - MSOffice 2000 systems in the real estate industry (although many industries were similarly impacted). What happened is that on a Friday afternoon, just prior to a big open house weekend, Microsoft issued a security patch for all Exchange systems. Once the patch was installed, end users needed IE 7.0 to connect to the Exchange Server Systems.

      Since there is no IE 7.0 made for Windows 2000, those users relying on E/S Hub applications, which was the entire industry, suddenly found themselves disconnected and near out of business.

      Amazingly, not a single user complained! Rather than getting pissed at Microsoft for the sudden and very disruptive EOL, the real estate users simply ran out to buy new XP-MSOffice 2003 systems. It was all done under the rational that to be competitive, you have to keep up with technology systems.

      Amazing. But it also goes to show how powerfully productive the E/S Hub applications can be. This wouldn't have happened if the E/S Hub applications didn't have a very high productivity value.

      When we visited Massachusetts in June of 2006, to demonstrate and test the da Vinci ODF plugin for MSOffice, we found them purchasing en mass E/S Hubs! These are ODF killers! Yet Microsoft sales people had convinced Massachusetts ITD that Exchange/SahrePoint was a simple to use eMail-calendar-portal system. Not a threat to anyone!

      The truth is that in the E/S Hub ecosystem, OOXML is THE TRANSPORT. ODF is a poor, second class attachment of no use at the application - document processing chain level.

      Even if Massachusetts had mandated ODF, they were only one E/S Hub Court Doc
  • Microsoft can offer businesses many of the informational sharing and mining benefits associated with the markup language while leveraging Office and supporting desktop and server products as the primary consumption conduit.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      Okay, now Joe has the Micrsoft SOA bull by the horns.  Why doesn't he wrestle the monster down?
  • Microsoft will vie for the whole business software stack, a strategy that I believe will be indisputable by early 2009 at the latest.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      Finally, someone who understands the grand strategy of levergaing the desktop monopoly into the converged space of server, device and web information systems.

      What Joe isn't watching is the way the Exchange/SharePoint Server connects to MS SQL Server, Active Directory Server, MS LIve and MS Dynamics.

      Also, Joe does not see the connection between OOXML as the portable XML document/data transport, and the insidiously proprietary Smart Documents metadata - data binding system that totally separates MSOOXML from Ecma 376 OOXML!
  • I'm convinced that Office as a platform is an eventual dead end. But Microsoft is going to lead lots of customers and partners down that platform path.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
       
      Yes, but the new platform for busines process development is that of MSOffice <> Exchange/SharePoint Hub.

      The OOXML-Smart Docs transport replaces the old binary document with OLE and VBA Scripts and Macros functionality.  Which, for the sake of brevity we can call the lead Win32 API dependencies.

      One substantial difference is that OOXML-Smart Docs is Vista Stack ready, while the Win32 API dependencies were desktop bound.

      Another way of looking at this is to see that the old MSOffice platform was great for desktop application integration.  As long as the complete Win32 API was available (Windows MSOffice VBA run times), this platform was great for workgroups.  The Line of Business integrated apps were among the most brittle of all client/server efforts, bu they were the best for that generation.

      The Internet offers everyone a new way of integrating data, content and streaming media.  Web applications are capable of loosly coupled serving and consuming of other application services.  Back end systems can serve up data in a number of ways: web services as SOAP, web services as AJAX/REST, or XML data streams as in HTTPXMLRequest or Jabber P2P model.

      On the web services consumption side, it looks like AJAX/REST will be the block buster choice, if the governance and security issues can be managed.

      Into this SOA mash Microsoft will push with a sweeping integrated stack model.  Since the Smart Docs part of the OOXML-Samrt Docs transport equation is totally proprietary, but used throughout the Vista Stack, it will provide Microsoft with an effective customer lockin - OSS lockout point.

  • Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07
     
    Great article series from eWeek.  A must read.  But it all comes down to interoperability across two stack models:  The Microsoft Vista Stack, and an alternative Open Stack model that does not yet exist!

    Incompatible formats become a nightmare for the kind of integration any kind of SOA implementation depends on, let alone the Web 2.0 AJAX MashUps this article focuses on.

    I wonder why eWEEK didn't include the Joe Wilcox Micrsoft Watch Article, "Obla De OBA Da".  Joe hit hard on the connection between OOXML and the Vista Stack.  He missed the implications this will have on MS SOA solutions.  Open Source SOA solutions will be locked out of the Vista Stack.  And with 98% or more of existing desktop business processes bound to MSOffice, the transition of these business processes to the Vista Stack will no doubt have a dramatic impact on the marketplace.  Before the year is out, we'll see Redmond let loose with a torrent of MS SOA solutions.  The only reason they've held back is that they need to first have all the Vista Stack pieces in place.

    I don't think Microsoft is being held back by OOXML approval at ISO either.  ISO approval might have made a difference in Europe in 2006, but even there, the EU IDABC has dropped the ISO requirement.  For sure ISO approval means nothing in the US, as California and Massachusetts have demonstrated. 

    All that matters to State CIO's is that they can migrate exisiting docuemnts and business processes to XML.  The only question is, "Which XML?  OOXML, ODF or XHTML+".

    The high fidelity conversion ratio and non disruptive OOXML plugin for MSOffice has certainly provided OOXML with the edge in this process. <br
Gary Edwards

Has Microsoft lost its way on desktop computing? | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/Apple

msoffice ooxml saas soa xaml

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Apr 08 - Cached
  • OM MALIK: You outlined Microsoft’s software-plus-services strategy, but what I want to know about is the changing role of the desktop in this service’s future. RAY OZZIE: I think the real question is (that) if you were going to design an OS today, what would it look like? The OS that we’re using today is kind of in the model of a ’70s or ’80s vintage workstation. It was designed for a LAN, it’s got this great display, and a mouse, and all this stuff, but it’s not inherently designed for the Internet. The Internet is this resource in the back end that you can design things to take advantage of. You can use it to synchronize stuff, and communicate stuff amongst these devices at the edge. A student today or a web startup, they don’t actually start at the desktop. They start at the web, they start building web solutions, and immediately deploy that to a browser. So from that perspective, what programming models can I give these folks that they can extend that functionality out to the edge? In the cases where they want mobility, where they want a rich dynamic experience as a piece of their solution, how can I make it incremental for them to extend those things, as opposed to learning the desktop world from scratch?
  • Gary Edwards on 07 Apr 08
     
    ZDNet's David Morgenstern must have missed ISO approval of OOXML! MS has a desktop strategy, but involves proprietary protocols, formats and API's as the protective barrier for transitioning desktop bound client/server business processes to MS Web Stack bound SaaS-SOA business processes. Welcome to the Microsoft Cloud!
Gary Edwards

OOXML in Norway: The haywire process | Geir Isene : Straight talk on IT - 0 views

blogs.freecode.no/isene

interoperability iso odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Aug 07 - Cached
  • I had read the essay by Jon Bosak (SUN Microsystems) on why SUN voted as it did in the US. He lays out a very different strategy. His view is that the battle is lost to completely reject OOXML as an ISO standard. ISO can only reject it with comments, and that is equivalent to giving Microsoft a todo-list on how to fix the draft so as to get it approved. Microsoft has sufficient manpower to easily tackle that. Most of us had missed what Mr. Bosak saw: OOXML promises interoperability with earlier closed binary formats (the Word Doc, older Excel file formats etc.). But it doesn’t deliver. How on earth could someone be able to convert old binary files to the new format without having the specification of the old formats and a mapping to OOXML. If you are to translate some text from Chinese to English, it doesn’t much help to only know English.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 28 Aug 07
       
      A "Yes with comments" is a yes for the ISO approval of MS-OOMXL. If ISO approves MS-OOXML, it won't matter what Bosak's "comments" strategy is. Microsoft and the Vista Stack will be off to the races. The full disclosure of the MS binary document secret blueprint won't matter much at that point.
  • “Ah c’mon Bosak, you are chickening out, we must stop this dead in the track”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 28 Aug 07
       
      There you go Geir!

      Sun and Bosak have held the door open for MS-OOXML since 2002, when Sun blocked an effort to write the ODF Charter to include as a priority, "compatibility with existing file formats". This of course would include the billions of legacy MS binary documents.

      The thing is that those who work in the conversion-translation field will tell you that it is currently impossible to pipe converted legacy binary documents and OOXMl docs for that matter into ODF. Just as Microsoft claims, ODF in it's current state is insufficient and unable to handle the rich feature set of the MSOffice developers platform.

      The problem could of course be easily fixed by the inclusion in ODF of five structural generics. In the past year, there have been no less than five iX "interoperability enhancement" proposals submitted to the OASIS ODF TC for discussion and consideration. As uber universal interop expert Florian Reuter points out in his blog, these iX proposals did not fare so well.

      What Florian doesn't point out is that it was Sun who opposed any and all efforts to improve compatibility with existing Microsoft binary and OOXML documents. Just as they have done for nearly five years now.

      Sort of puts the Sun-Bosak support for ISO approval of MS-OOXML in a different light. ~ge~
  • Gary Edwards on 28 Aug 07
     
    see the sticky notes on this one
Gary Edwards

EU-IDABC ODEF Workshop 2007 in Berlin - Documentation - presentations - 0 views

ec.europa.eu/...5935

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

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jun 07 - Cached
  • As information exchange in and with public administrations is very often bound to documents, editing, archiving and exchange possibilities for documents are crucial for the optimum function of administrations, both in terms of practicality and cost. Initiatives such as the PEGSCO Recommendations on Open Document Formats published by the IDABC Management Committee, demonstrate public administrations preference for "open" document exchange and storage formats that are subject to formal standardisation via international standardisation procedures. &nbsp; The primary objectives of the Berlin event, held at the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), were to: compile further input from Member State public administrations on their experiences and strategies on ODEF gather industry viewpoints on the initiatives relating to ODEF standardization and information on future standardisation developments provide a platform for exchange between stakeholders in public administrations and main industry players The program of the workshop included, among other: ODEF Strategies: Examples from European Administration Practical Experiences with the implementation of ODEF Report on ODEF-Standardisation activities &nbsp;4 parallel sessions with participants&nbsp; &nbsp;A panel discussion with stakeholders&nbsp;
  • IDABC ODEF Workshop 2007 in Berlin
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jun 07
     
    ODF officially died on February 28, 2007, at the Advanced eGovernment Conference in Berlin.  Hellow ODEF
Gary Edwards

Q&amp;A: Calif. CIO Steers Clear of Ideology on File Formats - 0 views

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

california iso microsoft mooxml msoffice odf ooxml opendocument openxml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Mar 07 - Cached
  • We’re trying to view it as a straight business decision. What are the costs associated with one approach over another? Does it serve all of our business needs? If it doesn’t serve a business need, how do we satisfy that business need? We’re trying to view this just as a plain-vanilla, nonpartisan, nonideological issue.
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Mar 07
     
    A mus tread.  Carol Sliwa of ComputerWorld intervies Clark Kelso, California CIO.  ODF is the main issue, with clark casting all his answers in the context of business decisions.  Carol o fcourse is asking the best questions of any journalist alive.

    Keep in mind that ComputerWorld and the Boston globe filed for the Freedom of Information Act to be invoked in Massachusetts.  They got access to all the eMail, documnetation, and conferencing notes concerning ODF  and Microsoft.  Carol's interview with Louis Gutierrez last week was filled with the same hard questions Clark Kelso fielded so deftly.

    The "committee" Clark Kelso has set up to look at these issues is headed by Bill Welty, the CIO of the California Air Resources Board.  Bill is a long time opensource - Linux guy, but will be the firs tto admit that Microsoft is the only vendor providing a means of getting everything inot XML.  And that's the heart of any SOA strategy, "First, get everything into XML".

    With a 500 million MSOffice desktop bound business process headstart, Microsoft has the extreme advantage in this much needed migration to XML. 

    They now have their own proprietary application and platform bound version of XML; MOOXML (Microsoft OfficeOpenXML) heading for international standardization at ISO. 

    They now have their XML Hub in place; the Exchange4/SharePoint Hub.  This is also an essential part of any SOA strategy.  You've got to have an XML Hub where the XML information streams and service connection to legacy black box systems can be piped into, managed and resolved.  The XML must also provide an end user interface to these information flows.  One that converges and integrates information, documents, data, and workflows into an easy to manage and participate in interface.  The E/S Hub excells at this because it covers the fundamentals of eMail, messaging, portal, calendar, scheduling, c
Gary Edwards

Microsoft's Open Source Strategy & The Yahoo bid to get back in the game - 0 views

opensource.org/245

internet microsoft opensource oss yahoo

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Feb 08 - Cached
  • On the morning of February 1st 2008, Microsoft announced an unsolicited bid of $44.6B hostile for Yahoo!, and by the end of the day, Microsoft had lost $20B in market capitalization. Where does this leave Microsoft's open source strategy and the analysis thereof? Yahoo! was a pioneering "internet company", one of the first to really create and capture value of a world newly web-enabled. And like many of these so-called internet companies (Google was another), Yahoo! built it infrastructure on open source technologies. Why? Better, faster, cheaper: Dave Filo and Jerry Yang were still poor college students back in the day, but smart. (As were Sergey Brin and Larry Page, but that's another story.)
  • Gary Edwards on 02 Feb 08
     
    Michael Tiemann picks up where Mary Jo Foley left off. he takes her prescient arguments concerning Microsot's Open Source Strategey and xtends them to Microsot's bid for Yahoo! This is a must read!
Gary Edwards

IBM's Director of Strategy comes clean on OpenXML - IBM *WILL* support OpenXML in its L... - 0 views

notes2self.net/...lotus-and-portal-products.aspx

cdf heintzman ibm odf ooxml openxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Well, if that's IBM's plan they're going to need more than ODF, that's for sure - and that brings us to the announcement I've been wondering about: IBM favors ODF as a file format because it is "truly open" and technically elegant, Heintzman said. But IBM will support Open XML, which is the current document format in Office 2007, in its Lotus collaboration and portal products. IBM already supports older versions of Office. I feel a Pamela Jones moment coming on .... there it is, as plain as day for the world to see, Doug Heintzman breaks through all IBM's doublespeak and hypocrisy and admits it. I don't know about "Beyond Office" as a plan, I think the real game here is "Beyond ODF"
Gary Edwards

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

www.betanews.com/...1181922127

ecma-376 iso microsoft odf officeopenxml ooxml opendocument xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 07 - Cached
  • 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.
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jun 07
     
    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
Gary Edwards

Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog: Response to Ars Technica's Article on the OD... - 0 views

ccsblog.burtongroup.com/...response-to-ars.html

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Five days ago Ars Technica issued its view of the Burton Group ODF/OOXML report and made it clear that they disagreed with its findings, going with the headline, "Analyst group slams ODF, downplays Microsoft ISO abuses." We've had some questions from Burton Group clients and others about the article, so I thought it would be worthwhile to go through where we agree, where we disagree, where Ars Technica mischaracterizes what we said, and where it's wrong.
Gary Edwards

Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML - 0 views

talkback.zdnet.com/5206-12558-0.html

anti-trust browser-wars gates msoffice netscape ooxml w3c

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • From: Bill Gates Sent: Saturday, December 5 1998 To: Bob Muglia, Jon DeVann, Steven Sinofsky Subject : Office rendering "One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destroy Windows. I would be glad to explain at a greater length. Likewise this love of DAV in Office/Exchange is a huge problem. I would also like to make sure people understand this as well." Tuesday, August 28, 2007
  • 3.2.2.2. A pox on both your houses! gary.edwards - 01/22/08 Hi Robert, What you've posted are examples of MSOffice ”compatibility settings” used to establish backwards compatibility with older documents, and, for the conversion of alien file formats (such as various versions of WordPerfect .wpd). These compatibility settings are unspecified in that we know the syntax but have no idea of the semantics. And without the semantic description there is no way other developers can understand implementation. This of course guarantees an unacceptable breakdown of interoperability. But i would be hesitant to make my stand of rejecting OOXML based on this issue. It turns out that there are upwards of 150 unspecified compatibility settings used by OpenOffice/StarOffice. These settings are not specified in ODF, but will nevertheless show up in OpenOffice ODF documents – similarly defying interoperability efforts! Since the compatibility settings are not specified or even mentioned in the ODF 1.0 – ISO 26300 specification, we have to go to the OOo source code to discover where this stuff comes from. Check out lines 169-211. Here you will find interesting settings such as, “UseFormerLineSpacing, UseFormerObjectPositioning, and UseFormerTextWrapping”. So what's going on here?
Gary Edwards

What's Up Doc? Report on ODF / OOXML / W3C Document Wars |Collaboration and Content St... - 0 views

ccsblog.burtongroup.com/...blogger-guy-cre.html

burtongroup cdf desmond odf okelly ooxml opendocument xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 08 - Cached
  • The overall document summary: Industry debate about the relative merits of OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Ecma 376 Office Open XML (OOXML) highlights the significance of the productivity application market shift from binary and proprietary file formats to vendor- and product-independent Extensible Markup Language (XML) models. The competitive stakes are huge, and the related political posturing is sometimes perplexing. In this overview, Research Directors Guy Creese and Peter O’Kelly introduce ODF, OOXML, and related World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, and project their implications for future productivity applications.
Gary Edwards

Unbreaking the Web: IE 8 passes ACID 2 Test | John Resig - 0 views

ejohn.org/unbreaking-the-web

cdf css iso microsoft odf ooxml w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Mar 08 - Cached
  • IMHO, the key to Microsoft's OOXML strategy can be seen in the recently released MSOffice SDK. The SDK provides a component for the fluid conversion of OOXML to something called fixed/flow. The fixed part of this interesting conjunction is also known as XPS, which is designed as a proprietary alternative to PDF. The flow part is a fascinating and highly proprietary replacement for (X)HTML - CSS. Reading further through the MSOffice SDK, one can't help but be amazed at the lack of W3C technologies; especially (X)HTML, CSS, XForms and SVG. What we have instead is an entangling cascade of stuff like OOXML, fixed/flow, silverlight, XAML, and WPF. And then there is that recent promise of other high volume API's probably delivered through future Exchange, SharePoint, and MS SQL Server SDK's. So, at the end of the day, what are we looking at here? IMHO, Microsoft has figured out that the smart thing to do is leverage and extend their existing desktop monopoly into the next generation of cloud computing where the Internet platform rules. To pull this off, they have a number of problems to overcome; not the least of which is that they need to catch a break on anti trust, and, get OOXML through ISO. And oh yeah, there's that little problem that Windows can't do cloud computing.
Gary Edwards

Most Business Tech Pros Wary About Web 2.0 Tools In Business - Technology News by Infor... - 0 views

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

exchange iso microsoft msoffice oasis odf ooxml opendocument openxml sharepoint vista xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07 - Cached
  • How should an IT team start thinking about an Enterprise 2.0 strategy? One way is to carve it into two main areas. The first is Web-based information sharing--think business versions of Wikipedia, MySpace, and Flickr. A sizable minority of companies are finding effective business uses for blogs, wikis, syndicated feeds, pervasive search, social networking, collaborative content portals like SharePoint, and mashups that use easier-to-integrate APIs and fast-response development techniques such as Ajax. One example: Wikis, which let multiple people access and edit a document online, are widely used at 6% of companies in our survey and used effectively by a few employees at 25% of companies. The second area is voice and messaging, where voice over IP, instant messaging, presence, videoconferencing, and unified communications can make it possible to connect people in more relevant ways. Unified communications entails the blending of voice calls, video, and messages, coupled with functionality like embedded click-to-call links in documents and contact lists and the ability to see if colleagues and partners are available to chat. It's widely used at 13% of companies surveyed and effectively by a few at 24%.
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 07
     
    Great coverage from InformationWeek about the emerging Enterprise 2.0 arena.  Author Michael Hoover does not get too deep into the Information Processing Chain, as exampled by the integrated Vista Stack of desktop, server, device,Internet systems and services.  But he provides a more than adequate framework for evaluating chain components.

    As the ODF - OOXML battle contiues to expand, engulfing swallowing and swamping near everythign in it's path, the day is not too far off when the battle will move to the center of Enterprise 2.0 considerations.  It has to.  XML Hubs are how these converging technologies are going to be gathered, integrated and configured to impact rapidly changing business processes.  There has to be a universal transport in these systems that all applications can work, and nothig matches the highly portable and interactive document/data capabilities of ODF and OOXML.  They alone own the desktop prodcutivity environment migration to XML.  And it will be through XML - RDF/XML that the Hubs finally integrate the flow of information between desktops, servers, devices and Internet systems.

    ~ge~

Gary Edwards

Open IT Strategies: Sun and IBM Sabotage ODF Interoeprability - 0 views

blog.openitstrategies.com/...two-months-of-it-news.html

cdf foundation odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Nov. 12: A great article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols announced that the Open Document Foundation has closed shop, alleging that the foundation’s founders Sun and IBM tried to sabotage document interoperability, and instead endorsing W3C’s Compound Document Format. I’ve had my differences with SJVN — he’s on the true-believer end of open source reporters — but he’s really captured well a complex story: in the end, neither the ODF nor CDF faction comes across as completely credible.
Gary Edwards

Open Document Format Wars at xentek.net - Eric Marden - 0 views

www.xentek.net/...open-document-format-wars

cdf foundation odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Nov 07 - Cached
  • What is quite remarkable, if not a little confusing, is that an organization would not only put the brakes on a format it helped created - but do so publicly and authentically, as soon as they realized that the end result was not what they set out for it to be. Many organizations would just sweep such thoughts under the rug, and keep to their dead end strategy - afraid to admit the wrong turn they took at Albuquerque. I have to applaud the leadership body of the Open Document Foundation for having the courage to stand for what they believe. Bravo.
Gary Edwards

The Office question 2007 | Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: - 0 views

www.roughtype.com/...the_office_ques.php

collaboration interoperability office office20 w3c web

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07 - Cached
  • As I argued in my post Office Generations last year, we're in the early stages of the "hybrid phase" of personal productivity applications, when most people will use web apps to extend rather than replace their old Office apps. This phase will play out over a number of years as the web technologies mature, at which point it will become natural to use purely web-based apps (with, probably, continued local caching of data and program code). What this means is that Microsoft has a good opportunity to maintain Office's dominance during the switchover by pursuing what it calls its "software plus services" strategy. But Microsoft should be anything but complacent right now. Maintaining market dominance does not necessarily mean maintaining traditional levels of profitability. The biggest threat posed by online alternatives may well be to undermine Microsoft's pricing power - a trend we're already seeing in the student market.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07
       
      It's all about interoperability and functionality without disruption to existing business processes.
Gary Edwards

Jason Brooks - Bumps on the Road to Document Exchange Nirvana - Flock - 0 views

blogs.eweek.com/...e_opendocument_foundation.html

cdf odf ooxml w3c

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Nov 07 - Cached
  • The OpenDocument Foundation has announced its plans to sever itself from participation in or further advocacy of its namesake office document format in favor of the World Wide Web Consortium's XHTML (Extensible HTML)-based Compound Document Format. Although the OpenDocument Foundation is a fairly small organization, the group sports a certain cachet that stems from the ODF-to-MS Office plug-in that the group announced--but did not release publicly--about a year and a half ago. At the heart of the rift between the Foundation and the rest of the ODF backers--led by Sun and IBM--lies a dispute over the proper strategy for achieving round-trip document fidelity between Microsoft Office and ODF-consuming applications, such as Sun's OpenOffice.org or IBM's Lotus Symphony.
Gary Edwards

Home - Berkman Center for Internet & Society - 0 views

cyber.law.harvard.edu/...home

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07 - Cached
  • There were 5 successive Roundtables.  Each roundtable was led by 5 short presentations before the topic was opened to the floor for general discussion.  The first roundtable focused on "What is ODF, and why are open document standards important". There were many questions regarding how open standards affect competition and innovation, whether ODF is in fact the best standard, issues of archiving and interoperability with ODF as well as how ODF addresses/will address concerns of accessibility for disabled persons. The second Roundtable discussed how various software developers were responding to ODF and the third roundtable focused on whether governments or non-governmental and consumer organizations should systematically use procurement policy to promote ODF.  The following roundtable was a lively discussion on whether national or global "agreements" can play a role in promoting ODF and how.  During that roundtable as well as the last one on "Reflections and next steps", there were discussions of future work and strategies on ODF in a new international forum, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to be held in Athens, Greece, October 30 - November 3, 2006.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 18 Dec 07
       
      The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School held an Open Document Conference, October 23rd, 2006. Just a few weeks after the October 4th, 2006 resignation of Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez. This is the summary report of organizer Manon Ress. Sam Hiser represented the OpenDocument Foundation. The ZERO Interop problems that plague ODF implementation were not discussed. Strangely :) Another point not discussed is the fact that ODF is not an Internet file format. It's a desktop office suite only format. This constraint is written into the ODF charter. Interestingly, one of the problems of making ODF Web ready is that of highjacked W3C standards. Highjacking occurs when a specification or application takes existing W3C standards and changes the namespace reference to it's own. This is what ODF does. The reason for doing this is to constrain and limit the W3C standard to just those aspects implemented by the ODF reference application, OpenOffice. XForms, SVG, SMiL, XHTML, RDF/XML and RDFa are problematic examples of W3C namespaces that have been highjacked by ODF to meet the specific implementation constraints of OpenOffice. This impacts developers who rely on standard libraires to do conversions and processing. The libraries are built to the proper W3C namespace, and unfortunately assume that ODF complies. It doesn't, So developers have to investigate how OpenOffic eimplements XForms and SVG, and build special ODF libraries before they can use ODF on the Web. It can be done, i think. But it's a train wreck of a mess guaranteed to destroy the high level of web interoperability users and developers expect.
Paul Merrell

Doug Mahugh : Office support for document format standards - 0 views

blogs.msdn.com/...document-format-standards.aspx

interop microsoft odf strategy

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 May 08 - Cached
  • Third-party translators. We anticipate that some developers may want to take over the default ODF load and save paths, so that they can plug in their own translators for ODF, and we'll be providing an API in SP2 that enables this scenario. This means that if a developer disagrees with the details of our approach and would like to implement ODF for Office in a different way, they're free to do so and can set it up such that when a user opens an ODT attached to an email or from their desktop, it will be loaded through their ODF code path.
    • Paul Merrell
      Paul Merrell on 22 May 08
       
      The Third-party translators discussion of the forthcoming new API suggests that it is for ODF only, and thereby implicitly that it will not be a tool for accessing the full functionaolity of MS Word, i.e., that only the functionality specified in ODF 1.1 will be available. E.g., no control of Sharepoint functionality or manipulation of the Microsoft cloud through the API from OpenOffice.org via ODF. .
    • Jesper Lund Stocholm
      Jesper Lund Stocholm on 23 May 08
       
      The Microsoft cloud depends heavily on OOXML, and that is likely not going to change. Are you saying that you'd prefer a plug-in mechanism in SharePoint as well? I believe the protocols used by SharePoint are included in the specs now provided. Won't that do (apart from the non-commercial usage of the specs)
  • If you're an Office 2007 user, the image above probably looks pretty familiar. But look close, and you'll see some Save-As options you've not seen before here: OpenDocument, and (unless you have the existing add-in) PDF &amp; XPS.
  • There is new information today about the planned release of v2.0 of the ODF translator on the ODF translator team blog. The SourceForge translator projects will continue to move forward, and Microsoft will continue to be an active participant in these projects.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • This is a screen shot of a pre-release copy of SP2 (Service Pack 2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, showing the new document format standards that we'll be supporting starting with SP2.
    • Paul Merrell
      Paul Merrell on 23 May 08
       
      Hi, Jesper. according to another article I found later, the new APIs (I assume it should be plural rather than singlular) will allow addition of formats other than ODF, so I apparently got that part wrong. On the Sharepoint example, I wasn't sufficiently clear and apologize. Assume you create a document in MS Office that invokes Sharepoint functionality, then you save it as ODF and ship it off to a co-worker using OOo. The OOo user wants to send it back to you for further processing. But if saving to ODF in Office wipes the Sharepoint metadata, you've got data loss on the outbound trip. The path you suggest would work at least in theory (I haven't heard any reports yet of the documentation on the Sharepoint APIs) if Sharepoint were used as an intermediary hub. But the Sharepoiint document may not be accessible to the co-worker, e.g., because of page security settings. I anticipate that there would be many cases where only one end of the trip has access to the hub, so there's a need to keep the path open that bypasses the hub and for it to be non-lossy. There is an article on BetaNews by Scott Fulton that interviews a couple of the Softies. They said that there will be lots of Office functionality that won't be able to be saved in ODF, that they're not planning a compatability mode that would block use of features that can't be saved to ODF, and that they're not planning to go beyond the features specified in ODF 1.1. So if they carry through on what they said, the outbound trip to ODF implementations will be lossy. I think the real problem with the Sharepoint specs and other documentation Microsoft is releasing is that it isn't in a standard where a technical committee could say yea or nay on whether it is suffiiciently specific and where the specs can be made vendor-neutral. In other words, that Micrsooft is in control of the specifiation rather than a standards body. Microsoft got away so far with creating a de facto standard for the line of business functional
    • Paul Merrell
      Paul Merrell on 23 May 08
       
      Hi, Jesper. according to another article I found later, the new APIs (I assume it should be plural rather than singlular) will allow addition of formats other than ODF, so I apparently got that part wrong. On the Sharepoint example, I wasn't sufficiently clear and apologize. Assume you create a document in MS Office that invokes Sharepoint functionality, then you save it as ODF and ship it off to a co-worker using OOo. The OOo user wants to send it back to you for further processing. But if saving to ODF in Office wipes the Sharepoint metadata, you've got data loss on the outbound trip. The path you suggest would work at least in theory (I haven't heard any reports yet of the documentation on the Sharepoint APIs) if Sharepoint were used as an intermediary hub. But the Sharepoiint document may not be accessible to the co-worker, e.g., because of page security settings. I anticipate that there would be many cases where only one end of the trip has access to the hub, so there's a need to keep the path open that bypasses the hub and for it to be non-lossy. There is an article on BetaNews by Scott Fulton that interviews a couple of the Softies. They said that there will be lots of Office functionality that won't be able to be saved in ODF, that they're not planning a compatability mode that would block use of features that can't be saved to ODF, and that they're not planning to go beyond the features specified in ODF 1.1. So if they carry through on what they said, the outbound trip to ODF implementations will be lossy. I think the real problem with the Sharepoint specs and other documentation Microsoft is releasing is that it isn't in a standard where a technical committee could say yea or nay on whether it is suffiiciently specific and where the specs can be made vendor-neutral. In other words, that Micrsooft is in control of the specifiation rather than a standards body. Microsoft got away so far with creating a de facto standard for the line of business functional
  • Paul Merrell on 22 May 08
     
    "This is a screen shot of a pre-release copy of SP2 (Service Pack 2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, showing the new document format standards that we'll be supporting starting with SP2."
  • Jesper Lund Stocholm on 23 May 08
     
    "This is a screen shot of a pre-release copy of SP2 (Service Pack 2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office System, showing the new document format standards that we'll be supporting starting with SP2."
Paul Merrell

Gray Matter : Microsoft adds "Save as ODF" to Office 2007 Service Pack 2 - 0 views

blogs.technet.com/...ffice-2007-service-pack-2.aspx

interop microsoft odf strategy

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 May 08 - Cached
  • There are really two central catalysts for these actions. One of these is the feedback we have received from the regulatory environment. There is a high degree of interest in our working with other software vendors to improve information exchange through the use of standardized technologies.
  • In our early testing we are observing that every product implementing these standards has some level of variation from the written spec. If you've been around standards for a while, you'll know this is common, and requires dialog to establish best practices &amp; patterns. This is our reason for joining the OASIS, AIIM and ISO committees,
  • Because ODF side-stepped the compatibility question, we were left to solve (continue solving) that challenge elsewhere; the aversion to dealing with legacy content created a real problem for customers who want to transition to more open file formats.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Office 14 will update our support for IS29500. The timing for this might seem strange, but I do hope the rationale is clear. ODF 1.1 is a completed specification. The final version of IS29500 is not published today. While we do support a significant portion of IS29500 already, the BRM changes and other issues raised in public forums will inform us on how to best move forward with IS29500… and it gives me a little time to address the compatibility considerations that will be an important part of any file format related changes in Office.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 May 08
     
    Microsoft's Gray Knowlton on the reasons for the Redmond decision to provide native support for ODF 1.1. But most noteworthy, I think, is Knowlton's statement indicating that Microsoft aims at improving interop through best practices & patterns, i.e., application-level interop initiatives, as opposed to amending the ODF standard to specify conformity requirements essential to achieve interoperability, as required by JTC 1 Directives, international law, and antitrust law. In other words, big vendor negotiations around interop rather than giving software users and independent developers a seat at the table.
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