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Gary Edwards

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

dsonline.computer.org/...index.jsp

cdf css html ooxml xaml xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 08 - Cached
  • 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
      Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 08
       
      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
  • Gary Edwards on 18 Apr 08
     
    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

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

» Why XHTML and CSS? | UK Web Hosting | Linux Windows Server Tutorials | PHP ... - 0 views

blog.eukhost.com/...why-xhtml-and-css

css design xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 11 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Title: Why XHTML and CSS? Simply put, XHTML and CSS has an indefinate bond together, they work together perfectly and they shape everything for the prospect of the future Internet.
Gary Edwards

Cheers for the Prince - More Cagle Championing CDF | O'Reilly XML Blog - 0 views

www.oreillynet.com/...cheers_for_the_prince.html

cdf css prince xhtml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Dec 07 - Cached
  • In other words, I would like to lay out my printable documents in a way that’s familiar to me, for which I have tools that can support this and that can easily be changed without having to do a search and replace through a hundred distance instances of a paragraph. In short, I want CSS, acting on XHTML, generating my printed pages as readily as it displays that content to the screen. A previous blog from Michael Day about PrinceXML reminded me that I hadn’t had a chance to play with it. My previous experiences with XHTML to PDF conversion were, to put it bluntly, terrifying, and so, as I was downloading the JAR file I wasn’t expecting a lot. When I tried it, I wasn’t disappointed … I was stunned. I had taken an article that I’d recently written for XML.com and run it through Prince. It digested the ten page article and cranked out a PDF in under a second, and the quality was better than anything I’d been able to get with a straight DocBook/FO/PDF rendering. I looked up the documentation, and found that it supported the CSS 3.0 page rendering set, as well as support for columns (including columnar rules), it could be used to print SVG content embedded or linked to the main XHTML document, and it included a nice set of extension properties for handling headers and footers, internal links, rounded borders, and the full panoply of CSS selectors including nth-child (which seemingly no one supports), content search and the whole gamut of pseudo-classes.
Gary Edwards

We've Been Had! - 0 views

www.computerworld.com/...9027164

iso odef odf ooxml openwave xhtml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jul 07 - Cached
  • There is nothing open about MOOXML, and it should have never made it to consideration as an international standard. But one has to ask, what is up with Sun? The John Bosak comment is just as much cause for concern as the fact that the nations of the world would dare consider OOXML as an international standard. All i can say is that we've been had. Sun and Microsoft have worked us royally, and only now, at the last moment, does the fog of confusion clear and we can see it all.
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Jul 07
     
    Yeah.  I said this!  And i still think ODF has what it takes to become a universal file format.  But only if the "interoperability enhancment" proposals are made part of the specification.  You can't talk your way to universal interop.   It has to go into the spec!

    OBTW, for you idiots who think i support OOXML as a standard?  You're idiots.  I support the quest for a universal file format that is totally application, platform and vendor independent.  The requirements, demands and criticisms we make of OOXML should be applied to every file format up for universal file format consideration.  Including ODF.  Including XHTML+ (XHTML, CSS3, RDF).  Including the EU IDABC "ODEF".

    The one area where i differ from most universal interoperability seekers is that i fully believe the big vendors have left open a loop hole we can exploit.  The plugin architecture is fully able to convert a big vendors application to produce our beloved but elusive universal file format. 

    This is important because the big vendors control "interoperability" by contolling the big vendor standards consortia, and, the major applications.  It's a double edged sword.

    The ubiquitous plugin architecture enables universal interop seekers to exploit the applications any way we want.  What's missing is a truly open "universal" standards process that is outside the reach of big vendors. 

    Personally i like the recent GPL3 process as a model on which to base emerging universal standards work.  Somehow the big vendors must be neutralized.  Otherwise, we;ll never see the universal inteop the world so desires.

    idiots,
    ~ge~

  • Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 07
     
    The "Backwards Compatibility" issue is all the rage at ISO, with the September vote on MS OOXML just a month away.

    Microsoft and Sun (We've Been Had!) are arguing that ISO should approve MS OOXML (Microsoft OfficeOpenXML) because OOXML offers a backwards compatibility with the legacy of existing billions of binary documents.

    This oft sighted history of Microsoft's reprehensible business practices is worth citing once again before the nations of the world go down that treacherous path towards ratifying Microsoft's proprietary systems and products as international standards.



Gary Edwards

XML-Empowered Documents Extend SOA's Connection to People and Processes | BriefingsDire... - 0 views

briefingsdirect.blogspot.com/...red-documents-extend-soas.html

cloud-computing collaborative-computing paas saas soa woa

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Apr 08 - Cached
  • We're going to talk about dynamic documents. That is to say, documents that have form and structure and that are things end-users are very familiar with and have been using for generations, but with a twist. That's the ability to bring content and data, on a dynamic lifecycle basis, in and out of these documents in a managed way. That’s one area.The second area is service-oriented architecture (SOA), the means to automate and reuse assets across multiple application sets and data sets in a large complex organization.We're seeing these two areas come together. Structured documents and the lifecycle around structured authoring tools come together to provide an end-point for the assets and resources managed through an SOA, but also providing a two-way street, where the information and data that comes in through end-users can be reused back in the SOA to combine with other assets for business process benefits.
  • Thus far we’ve been talking about the notion of unstructured content as a target source to SOA-based applications, but you can also think about this from the perspective of the end application itself -- the document as the endpoint, providing a framework for bringing together structured data, transactional data, relational data, as well as unstructured content, into a single document that comes to life.Let me back up and give you a little context on this. You mentioned the various documents that line workers, for example, need to utilize and consume as the basis for their jobs. Documents have unique value. Documents are portable. You can download a document locally, attach it to an email, associate it with a workflow, and share it into a team room. Documents are persistent. They exist over a period of time, and they provide very rich context. They're how you bring together disparate pieces of information into a cohesive context that people can understand.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      "various line of business applications and composite applications" is exactly where ODF failed in Massachusetts! Think of client/server, with many business processes bound to MSOffice on the client side. The big ODF vendors tried to convince Massachusetts to "rip out and replace" MSOffice. Which proved to be terribly disruptive and costly. These bound "client side" processes would have to be rewritten, and none of the ODF applications were the equivalent of MSOffice as a developers platform (even if the cost was something MASS was willing to pay for - which they were not!). MASS came up with an alternative idea to save ODF, the idea of cloning the OOXML plug-in for MSOffice to create an ODF plug-in. The problem was that MASS did not have an IT budget thanks to Microsoft's political mucking. So MASS CIO Louis Gutierrez turned to the big vendors askign them to support something they seriously opposed. An ODF plug-in would leave MSOffice in place.
  • ...8 more annotations...
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      This paragraph says it all. The portable document is an essential frame for moving information thoughout the emerging client/ Web Stack /server information infrastructure model. The key is that the portable docuemnts are interactive and "live". The data and media streams bound to objects within the documents are attached to their original sources using XML connecting streams like XMLHTTPRequest or P2P Jabber XML routers. In 2003 we used Jabber to hot wire Comcast documents (docs, spreadsheet cells and presentations) to backend transactional blackboxes and web service rich data resources. The productivity gain from this approach is that end users are no longer required to verify and manage data. The "system" manages the data, freeing the end user to concentrate on the task of presentation, analysis and explanation.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      What? The key to client/ Web Stack /server design (advanced SOA) is to have a desktop "editor" that writes highly strucutred XML docuemnts that are universally portable across a wide range of Web Stacks. The W3C provides CDF as a very advanced docuemnt container for the purpose of porting complex documents across a wide range of "editors", servers, and devices. (X)HTML 2.0 - CSS3, SVG, XForms and RDF are the core components of the open web future where complex documents and business processes will move to client/ Web Stack /server models. The problem is that there are NO desktop "editors" capable of producing CDF. ISO approval of MS-OOXML stamps MSOffice as a standards compliant "editor". The problem is that it is very difficult to convert MS-OOXML documents to CDF - XHTML-CDF-SVG-RDF!!! The MSOffice SDK does provide an easy to implement MS-OOXML <> XAML conversion component. XAML itself is part of the proprietary WPF set of technologies, joining Silverlight, Smart Tags, and WinForms as a complete MS-Web ready alternative to advanced W3C technolgoies: XHTML, CSS, SVG, XForms, and RDF. XAML "fixed/flow" replaces XHTML-CSS. Silverlight replaces SVG and SWF (Flash). Smart Tags is a porprietary alternative to RDF-RDFa. And WinForms is of course an alternative to XForms. The MS Web STack core s comprised of Exchange, SharePoint and MS SQL Server. The core is joined by Windows Server, MS Dynamics, and MS Live (among so many). ISO approval of MS-OOXML provides the MS Cloud with a standards compliant "editor" that currently ownes OVER 95% of the desktop marketshare when it comes to bound business processes. With ISO approval, an entire generation of client/server processes can now transition to client/ Web Stack /server models, where they can take full advantage of the advanced SOA model where portable XML documents move structured data and media through a highly distributed but end user controlled web model.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      OK. Nice summary!
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      Uh oh. Does Mr. Sorofman understand the importance of MSOffice-OOXML-XAML-Smart Tags as an alternative to W3C RDF? This split in the Web will result in a nightmare for Google. Think of it as though Google owns the consumer side of the web, and Microsoft owns the business process side. Such is the importance of ISO approval of MS-OOXML! Google will be unable to match the search advantages of either RDF or Smart Tags. With Smart Tagged docuemnts though, Google won't even get the chance to compete. They will be locked out of the document processing chain that begins with MSOffice-OOXML and extends through a proprietary MS Web STack rich with XAML, Silverlight, WinForms and Smart Tag semantics! Although hindsight is 20-20, we can look back at 2006 in Massachusetts and see that the failure of ODF there is going to result in huge losses to Google and Oracle. Google will find themselves locked into a consumer web box, unable to branch out to business. Oracle will find themselves on the wrong side of a Microsoft dominated client/ Web Stack /server based transition of legacy client/server systems.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      Great idea Mr. Sorofman, but Microsoft owns the "editor" in this equation.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      Another good summary statement. Convergence however is very much tied to interoperability across the emerging client/ Web-Stack /server model that represents advanced SOA, SaaS, Web 2.0 and emerging Cloud Computing models.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      What we found at Comcast in 2002-2003 was many spreadsheet "templates" that the sales staff used to keep track of inventory, pricing, and client accounts. By P2P enabling the cells in these templates, we were able to connect in transactional database information in real time ( or web connect time :). Every template, whether it was a writer document,-form, spreadsheet template, or presentation deck was P2P Jabber wired at the object level wherever an external information source was invloved. Which seemed to be everywhere! The hard work is getting the XML connectors in place, setting up an information stream between the Web Stack (Apache Tomcat - MySQL-XUL Server), and the backend transational black boxes. With Comcast this was done through a 24 hour dump cycle with each black box dumping and uploading from the Web Stack. For sales, marketing and management, the Web Stack did the heavy business of serving up Jabber data and resolving order conflicts. The "system" took over the management and verification of data, releasing the sales force to concentrate on their primary task.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 15 Apr 08
       
      In Massachusetts, they were using eMail to shuttle spreadsheet templates around. This is about as brittle and unproductive a method as there is, but it was all they had. Rather than focusing on keeping their client side business processes operating, MASS might have been better off focusing on building a client/ Web-Stack /server model they could gradually transition these desktop bound processes to. Establish an open Web-Stack design, and work back towards the desktop client. Instead, MASS fell into the trap of trying to replace MSOffice on the desktop with ODF OpenOffice based alternatives, while simultaneously purchasing Exchange-SharePoint Web-Stack components! The MS Web-Stack is designed for MSOffice-OOXML business processes, not ODF!!!!!
  • Gary Edwards on 07 Apr 08
     
    Dana Gardner transcript of podcast interview with JustSystems and Phil Wainwright. Covers the convergence of the portable XML document model with SOA. It's about time someone out there got it. You know the portable XML document has arrived when analyst finally get it.
Gary Edwards

Prince: What's New - Docuemnt Publishing on Steroids with XHTML - CSS 3.0 (CDF+) - 0 views

www.princexml.com

cdf css w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Prince is a computer program that converts XML and HTML into PDF documents. Prince can read many XML formats, including XHTML and SVG. Prince formats documents according to style sheets written in CSS. Standards support HTML, CSS, SVG, MathML Web enabled Load documents, style sheets, images and fonts over HTTP Publishing features Hyphenation, crop marks, columns, page floats and footnotes Eye candy Rounded borders, small caps, CMYK and RGBA colors
Gary Edwards

CDF: The common format you've never heard of - O'Reilly XML Blog - Flock - 0 views

www.oreillynet.com/...he_common_format_youve_ne.html

cdf odf ooxml

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 Nov 07 - Cached
  • Quick! Do you use the Compound Document Format?! You, know, CDF … surely you use CDF, right? Chances are pretty good that you have no idea about what I’m talking about. Everyone knows Microsoft’s word document format and Adobe’s PDF, chances are pretty good that if you’re reading this on XML.com you’ve heard of ODF and OOXML, especially after the fairly rancorous discussions about ISO status for these two formats. Yet CDF, hmmmm … that’s a rough one. Didn’t it belong to Corel, once upon a time?
  • CDF was in the news recently with the implosion of the Open Document Foundation, originally established to endorse ODF, though in its death throes it briefly highlighted the CDF format as perhaps a better format for documents than either OOXML or ODF. This is admittedly one of those areas where it may be justified in looking at XHTML especially and going “huh”? How can that be a full document format - it’s used for web pages, after all - you wouldn’t want to use it to mark up a full book, would you? Document formats are a lot like religions - people are ready to defend them to the death if need be, yet at the same time it becomes easy to dismiss certain religions that don’t even seem to be religions at all (such as my personal favorite, the rather philosophical Tao). Could you mock up a brochure in XHTML and CSS? Actually, it turns out that its surprisingly easy to do just that - especially if you throw a little SVG into the mix and allow the possibility of embedding XHTML within SVG (for all those odd little bits of rotation and other special effects).
Gary Edwards

War rages on over Microsoft's OOXML plans: Insight - Software - ZDNet Australia - 0 views

www.zdnet.com.au/...0,139023769,339284737,00.htm

australia cdf interop iso microsoft odf ooxml opendocument

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Dec 07 - Cached
  • "We feel that the best standards are open standards," technology industry commentator Colin Jackson, a member of the Technical Advisory committee convened by StandardsNZ to consider OOXML, said at the event. "In that respect Microsoft is to be applauded, as previously this was a secret binary format." Microsoft's opponents suggest, among a host of other concerns, that making Open XML an ISO standard would lock the world's document future to Microsoft. They argue that a standard should only be necessary when there is a "market requirement" for it. IBM spokesperson Paul Robinson thus describes OOXML as a "redundant replacement for other standards". Quoting from the ISO guide, Robinson said that a standard "is a document by a recognised body established by consensus which is aimed at achieving an optimum degree of order and aimed at the promotion of optimum community benefits". It can be argued that rather than provide community benefit, supporting multiple standards actually comes at an economic cost to the user community. "We do not believe OOXML meets these objectives of an international standard," Robinson said.
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Dec 07
     
    "aimed at achieving an optimum degree of order .... and .... aimed at the promotion of optimum community benefits:. Uh, excuse me Mr. Robinson, tha tsecond part of your statement, the one concerning optimum community benefits - that would also disqualify ODF!! ODF was not designed to be compatible with the 550 million MSOffice desktops and their billions of binary docuemnts. Menaing, these 550 million users will suffer considerable loss of information if they try to convert their existing documents to ODF. It is also next to impossible for MSOffice applications to implement ODF as a fiel format due to this incompatbility. ODF was designed for OpenOffice, and directly reflects the way OpenOffice implements specific document structures. The problem areas involve large differences between how OpenOffice implments these structures and how MSOffice implements these same structures. The structures in question are lists, fields, tables, sections and page dynamics. It seems to me that "optimum community benefits" would include the conversion and exchange of docuemnts with some 550 million users!!!! And ODF was clearly not designed for that purpose!
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Dec 07
     
    I don't agree with this statement from Microsoft's Oliver Bell. As someone who served on the OASIS ODF Technical Committee from it's inception in November of 2002 through the next five years, i have to disagree. It's not that Microsoft wasn't welcome. They were. It's that the "welcome" came with some serious strings. Fo rMicrosoft to join OASIS would have meant strolling into the camp of their most erstwhile and determined competitors, and having to ammend an existing standard to accomodate the implementation needs of MSOffice. There is simply no way for the layout differences between OpenOffice and MSOffice to be negotiated short of putting both methodologies into the spec. Meaning, the spec would provide two ways of implementing lists, tables, fields, sections and page dynamics. A true welcome would have been for ODF to have been written to accomodate these diferences. Rather than writing ODF to meet the implementation model used by OepnOffice, it would have been infinitely better to wrtite ODF as a totally application independent file format using generic docuemnt structures tha tcould be adapted by any application. It turns out that this is exactly the way the W3C goes about the business of writing their fiel format specifications (HTML, XHTML, CSS, XFORMS, and CDF). The results are highly interoperable formats that any applciation can implement.
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Dec 07
     
    You can harmonize an application specific format with a generic, applicaiton independent format. But you can't harmonize two application specific formats!!!!
    The easy way to solve the document exchange problem is to leave the legacy applications alone, and work on the conversion of OOXML and ODF docuemnts to a single, application independent generic format. The best candidate for this role is that of the W3C's CDF.
    CDF is a desription of how to combine existing W3C format standards into a single container. It is meant to succeed HTML on the Web, but has been designed as a universal file format.
    The most exciting combination is that of XHTML 2.0 and CSS in that it is capable of handling the complete range of desktop productivity office suite documents. Even though it's slightly outside the W3C reach, the most popular CDF compound is that of XHTML, CSS and JavaScript. A combination otherwise known as "AJAX".
Gary Edwards

Microformats |Wikipedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/Microformat

microformats

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Oct 07 - Cached
  • A microformat (sometimes abbreviated μF or uF) is a web-based[1] data formatting approach that seeks to re-use existing content as metadata, using only XHTML and HTML classes[2] and attributes.[3] This approach is intended to allow information intended for end-users (such as contact information, geographic coordinates, calendar events, and the like) to also be automatically processed by software.
Gary Edwards

ConsortiumInfo.org - Standards to the People! (Updated Twice) - 0 views

www.consortiuminfo.org/...article.php

css iso odf ooxml xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 May 08 - Cached
  • I call on Ecma to withdraw OOXML from ISO and keep control of it themselves. We need it for legacy documents.
  • Gary Edwards on 20 May 08
     
    Strange demands from Andy Updegrove: "I call on Ecma to withdraw OOXML from ISO and keep control of it themselves. We need it for legacy documents...." Why would anyone want Ecma to take back control of MSOffice-OOXML from ISO? The best circumstance would be for OASIS to turn OpenOffice-ODF over to the same ISO JTC-S1, where they can finally begin the difficult (if not impossible) harmonization process. Let me add on other thing; the place for ISO to begin harmonization is "presentation". We desperately need a standardized presentation model useful to MSOffice-OOXML, OpenOffice-ODF, XHTML and HTML. I suggest they start with CSS 3, and work back into ODF - OOXML. But that's just me :)
Jesper Lund Stocholm

Publicly Available Standards - 0 views

standards.iso.org/...index.html

ISO

shared by Jesper Lund Stocholm on 27 May 08 - Cached
  • ISO/IEC 26300:2006 XHTML version 1st Information technology -- Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 XHTML version
  • The following standards are made freely available for standardization purposes. They are&nbsp;protected by copyright and&nbsp;therefore and unless otherwise specified, no part of&nbsp;these publications may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, scanning, reproduction in whole or in part to another Internet site, without permission in writing from ISO. Requests should be addressed to the ISO Central Secretariat.
  • ISO/IEC 29500-1:2008 Electronic inserts 1st Information technology -- Document description and processing languages -- Office Open XML File Formats -- Part 1: Fundamentals and Markup Language Reference JTC1/SC34 ISO/IEC 29500-2:2008 Electronic inserts 1st Information technology -- Document description and processing languages -- Office Open XML File Formats -- Part 2: Open Packaging Conventions JTC1/SC34 ISO/IEC 29500-3:2008 1st Information technology -- Document description and processing languages -- Office Open XML File Formats -- Part 3: Markup Compatibility and Extensibility JTC1/SC34 ISO/IEC 29500-4:2008 Electronic inserts 1st Information technology -- Document description and processing languages -- Office Open XML File Formats -- Part 4: Transitional Migration Features JTC1/SC34
    • Jesper Lund Stocholm
      Jesper Lund Stocholm on 15 Jan 09
       
      Remenber also to download the electronic inserts containing e.g. reference schemas in electronic form.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 May 08
     
    Most ISO and IEC standards are only available for purchase. However, a few are publicly available at no charge. ISO/IEC:26300-2006 is one of the latter and can be downloaded from this page in XHTML format. Note that the standards listed on the page are arranged numerically and the OpenDocument standard is very near the bottom of the page. This version of ODF is the only version that has the legal status of an international standard, making it eligible as a government procurement specification throughout all Member nations of the Agreement on Government Procurement.
Gary Edwards

The future of XML - 0 views

www.ibm.com/...x-xml2008prevw.html

odf ooxml xhtml xml

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Mar 08 - Cached
  • Of course, the most important conversion isn't from OpenDoc to OOXML or vice versa: it's a down conversion from either OpenDoc or OOXML to XHTML. The HTML exporters in OpenOffice and Microsoft Office are uniformly atrocious. Look for third-party developers to pick up the slack. Most important, look for individual corporate developers and webmasters to begin publishing custom templates for their sites. This will enable regular folks to write in Microsoft Word as they're accustomed to doing and then upload their musings straight into the local content-management system. Editing and reviewing tools can be built right in. Because machines generate all the markup (the humans see the GUI interface they're used to), well-formedness will be a freebie. The majority of the Web won't be well-formed by the end of 2008, but a larger percentage will be than today.
Gary Edwards

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats : Mapping documents in the binary format (.doc; .xls; .pp... - 0 views

blogs.msdn.com/...pt-to-the-open-xml-format.aspx

burtongroup cdf css ibm iso microsoft odf okelly ooxml opendocument openxml sun w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • The second issue we had feedback on was an interest in the mapping from the binary formats into the Open XML formats. The thought here was that the most effective way to help people with this was to create an open source translation project to allow binary documents (.doc; .xls; .ppt) to be translated into Open XML. So we proposed the creation of a new open source project that would map a document written using the legacy binary formats to the Open XML formats. TC45 liked this suggestion, and here was the TC45 response to the national body comments: We believe that Interoperability between applications conforming to DIS 29500 is established at the Office Open XML-to- Office Open XML file construct level only.
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
       
      And here i was betting that the blueprints to the secret binaries would be released the weekend before the September 2nd, 2007 ISO vote on OOXML! Looks like Microsoft saved the move for when they really had to use it; jus tweeks before the February ISO Ballot Resolution Meetings set to resolve the Sept 2nd issues. The truth is that years of reverse engineering have depleted the value of keeping the binary blueprints secret. It's true that interoperability with MSOffice in the past was near entirely dependent on understanding the secret binaries. Today however, with the rapid emergence of the Exchange/SharePoint juggernaught, interop with MSOffice is no longer the core issue. Now we have to compete with E/S, and it is the E/S interfaces, protocols and document API's and dependencies tha tmust be reverse engineered. The E/S juggernaught is now surging to 70% or more of the market. These near monopoly levels of market penetration is game changing. One must reverse engineer or license the .NET libraries to crack the interop problem. And this time it's not just MSOffice. Today one must crack into the MS Stack whose core is tha tof MSOffice <> E/S. So why not release the secret binary blueprints? If that's the cost of getting the application, platform and vendor specific OOXML through ISO, then it's a small price to pay for your own international standard.
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
     
    Well well well. We knew that IBM had access to the secret binary blueprints back in 2006. Now we know that Sun ALSO had access!
    And why is this important? In June of 2006, Massachusetts CIO Louis Gutierrez asked the OpenDocument Foundation's da Vinci Group to work with IBM on developing the da Vinci ODF plug-in clone of Microsoft's OOXML Compatibility Pack plug-in. When we met with IBM they were insistent that the only way OASIS ODF could establish sufficient compatibility with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents would be to have the secret blueprints open.
    Even after we explained to IBM that da Vinci uses the same internal conversion process that the OOXML plug-in used to convert binaries, IBM continued to insist that opening up the secret binaries was a primary objective of the OASIS ODF community.
    For sure this was important to IBM and Sun, but the secret binaries were of no use to us. da Vinci didn't need them. What da Vinci needed instead was a subset of ODF designed for the conversion of those billions of binary documents! A need opposed by Sun.
    Sun of course would spend the next year developing their own ODF plug-in for MSOffice. But here's the thing: it turns out that Sun had complete access to the secret binary blueprints dating back to 2006!!!!!!
    So even though IBM and Sun have had access to the blueprints since 2006, they have been unable to provide effective conversions to ODF!
    This validates a point the da Vinci group has been trying to make since June of 2006: the problem of perfecting a high fidelity conversion between the billions of binaries and ODF has nothing to do with access to the secret binary blueprints. The real issue is that ODF was NOT designed for the conversion of those binary documents.
    It is true that one could eXtend ODF to achieve the needed compatibility. But one has to be very careful before taking this ro
Gary Edwards

CDI WICD 2.0 - 0 views

www.w3.org/...Overview.html

cdf css svg w3c wicd xforms xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • This document defines a generic language-independent processing model for combining arbitrary document formats. The Compound Document Framework is language-independent. While it is clearly meant to serve as the basis for integrating W3C's family of XML formats within its Interaction Domain (e.g., MathML, SMIL, SVG, VoiceXML, XForms, XHTML, XSL) with each other, together with CSS and the DOM; it can also be used to integrate non-W3C formats with W3C formats or integrate non-W3C formats with other non-W3C formats. 1.1. Conformance Everying in this specification is normative except for diagrams, examples, notes and sections marked non-normative. The key words must, must not, required, shall, shall not, should, should not, recommended, may and optional in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. This specification defines the following classes of products: conforming implementation A user agent that implements all interfaces described in this specification and follows all must-, required- and shall-level of critera in this specification. conforming document A document that follows all must-, required- and shall-level of critera in this specification that apply to document authors. conforming authoring tool One that produces conforming documents.
Gary Edwards

Independent study advises IT planners to go OOXML | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com - 0 views

blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft

burtongorup cdf css garyedwards maryjo odf okelly ooxml w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • “ODF represents laudable design and standards work. It’s a clean and useful design, but it’s appropriate mostly for relatively unusual scenarios in which full Microsoft Office file format fidelity isn’t a requirement. Overall, ODF addresses only a subset of what most organizations do with productivity applications today.” The report continues: “ODF is insufficient for complex real-world enterprise requirements, and it is indirectly controlled by Sun Microsystems, despite also being an ISO standard. It’s possible that IBM, Novell, and other vendors may be able to put ODF on a more customer-oriented trajectory in the future and more completely integrate it with the W3C content model, but for now ODF should be seen as more of an anti-Microsoft political statement than an objective technology selection.”
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08
       
      Mary Jo takes on the recently released Burton Group Report comparing OOXML and ODF. Peter O'Kelly, one of the Burton Group authors, once famously said, "ODF is a great format if you live in an alternative universe where MSOffice doesn't exist!" This observation speaks to the core problem facing ODF and those who seek to implement the ODF standard: ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents. Nor was ODF designed to work with MSOffice applications. Another way of saying this is to state that ODF was not designed to be interoperable with MSOffice documents, applications and bound processes. The truth is that ODF was designed for OpenOffice/StarOffice. It is an application specific format. Both OOXML and ODF do a good job of separating content from presentation (style). The problem is that the presentation - layout layers of both ODF and OOXML remains bound to specific applications producing it. While the content layers are entirely portable and can be exchanged without information loss, the presentation layers can not. Microsoft makes no bones about the application specific design and purpose of OOXML. It's stated right in the Ecma 376 charter that OOXML was designed to be compatible with MSOffice and the billions of binary documents in MSOffice specific binary formats. The situation however is much more confusing with ODF. ODF is often promoted as being application, platform and vendor independent. After five years of development though, the OASIS ODF TC has been unable to strip ODF of it's OpenOffice/StarOffice specific aspects. ODF 1.0 - ISO 26300 had three areas that were under specified; meaning these areas were described in syntax only, and lacked the full semantics demanded by interoperable implementations. Only OpenOffice and StarOffice code base applications are able to exchange documents with an acceptable fidelity. The three under specified areas of ODF are: Lists (numbered), F
Gary Edwards

okay ... seriously now ... what is this supposed to be? - 229 views

Gary Thank you for the insightful (and exhaustive) overview. Question. Would you allow me to publish all or part of your response on my practice management blog at http://dcbalpm.wordpress.com? Or...

OpenDocument

started by mazyar hedayat on 01 Sep 07 3 follow-ups, last by Gary Edwards on 16 Apr 08
Gary Edwards

The Merging of SOA and Web 2.0: 2 - 0 views

www.eweek.com/...0,1895,2158559,00.asp

2.0 ajax mashup odf ooxml soa web

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Jul 07 - Cached
  • In many cases, the mashups' data or information sources have incompatible formats so integration becomes a problem.
  • 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

Open XML trumps ODF in document format fight, consulting firm says - 0 views

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

burtongorup cdf css odf okelly ooxml w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • The OpenDocument Format (ODF) remains "more of an anti-Microsoft political statement than an objective technology selection" by users, according to a report released Monday by analysts at Burton Group, who recommend that companies adopt Microsoft Corp.'s Office Open XML document format whether or not it is approved as an ISO standard next month.
Gary Edwards

Standard or Not, OOXML Has a Lot Going for It | Redmond Developer News - Desmond - 0 views

reddevnews.com/...weblog.aspx

burtongroup cdf css desmond odf okelly ooxml opendocument w3c xhtml

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Jan 08 - Cached
  • Ultimately, O'Kelly said it best in his report: "The relative success of ODF and OOXML, in any case, will be determined more by its utility and which community effectively exploits W3C standards than it will by one or the other more effectively navigating through ISO standards procedures."
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