How Microsoft Ratted Itself Out Of Office | BNET Technology Blog | BNET - The Diigo Meta page

• 14 Jul 09
  

  Graham Perrin

  2009

  • Buried in the two thousand-plus page documentation
  • the key to the kingdom — true compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats — past and present
  • 4 more annotations...
  • • the degree to which Microsoft’s own document contained the information competitors really need
    • OpenXML might be a bit more “open” than Microsoft intended
    • Microsoft has sowed the seeds of its own undoing
    • Microsoft has given away the key to compatibility with Office documents
• 

  Paul Merrell

  Here, IBM's Rob Weir takes OOXML to task for not specifying scripts and macros. But nary a mention of the fact that OpenDocument suffers from the same weakness. Yet another IBM double standard. He also tacks on an ad hominem attack against Gary Edwards, in lieu of addressing the merits of what Edwards said.

  double standards rob weir OOXML ODF ad hominem fallacy

  • Also, you have the problem that OOXML does not define details like scripts and macros, the very essence of integrating documents with business processes. So although you may now know how Office stores bold and italics, but these are not exactly the crown jewels of Office compatibility.
• 

  Gary Edwards

  Another good article form Michael Hickins, this time linking the success of Google Wave to the success of Microsoft OOXML. Rob Weir jumps in to defend , well, i'm not sure. I did however respond.
  
  Excerpt: Developers hoping to hitch a ride on Google’s Wave have discovered that Microsoft may have unwittingly helped them resolve the single greatest problem they needed to overcome in order to challenge the dominance of Office.
  
  When Microsoft set out to create Office 2007 using a brand new code base — Office Open XML (OOXML) — it needed to accomplish two goals: make it compatible with all previous versions of Office, and have it accepted as a standard file format for productivity tools so that governments could continue using it while complying with rules forcing them to use standards-based software. .....
  
  Depending on your perspective, either Microsoft has sowed the seeds of its own undoing, or international standards bodies succeeded in forcing Microsoft to open itself up. Either way, Microsoft has given away the key to compatibility with Office documents, allowing all comers to overcome the one barrier that has heretofore prevented customers from dumping Microsoft’s Office suite.
  

  MSOffice-productivity michael-hickins google-wave ooxml

• 13 Jul 09
  

  Robert Sutor

  "Depending on your perspective, either Microsoft has sowed the seeds of its own undoing, or international standards bodies succeeded in forcing Microsoft to open itself up. Either way, Microsoft has given away the key to compatibility with Office documents, allowing all comers to overcome the one barrier that has heretofore prevented customers from dumping Microsoft’s Office suite."

  OB Microsoft Office OOXML standards

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