[Linuxtrent] Sul formato Office 12: l'opinione di Kevin Carmony
- From: Emanuele Olivetti <olivetti@xxxxxx>
- To: LinuxTrent <linuxtrent@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 10:18:54 +0100
Ciao,
Kevin Carmony, presidente e CEO di Linspire, pubblica una newsletter (ogni
qualche
settimana) riguardo ai temi piu' attuali e dibattuti nel mondo Linux. Vi giro
l'ultima
cosa che ha scritto, arrivata stamane, sulla questione "formati aperti di
microsoft".
Tovate il tutto anche qui, tra le Linspire Letters:
http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter_archives.php?id=18
Buona lettura.
Emanuele
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: LL: Microsoft's Open Format Magic
From: Kevin Carmony<letter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Microsoft's Open Format Magic
by Kevin Carmony
November 30, 2005
I recently returned from a trip to Las Vegas. While there, I was visiting one of the larger shopping centers where there
was a magician's shop. The employees there were giving impressive demonstrations of tricks that you could purchase and
take home to wow your friends and family. In chatting with one of the employees, it was clear that many of the tricks
involved having the subject's eyes distracted so the magician could "work his magic" without being detected. For
example, the magician would create a diversion with one hand, and then hide a card up his sleeve with the other. It
would appear that Microsoft knows the power of this type of magic.
As announced recently, Microsoft is trying to allay fears about its strong control over document formats by sharing some
new technology called Open XML. In an effort to convince users that they will not be locked into closed document formats
once they buy Microsoft products, the company plans to submit the file formats of its forthcoming Office 12 suite to the
European standards body, ECMA International.
Microsoft is only doing this because they are facing competition from the likes of Adobe and the emerging OpenDocument
standard. Microsoft would certainly prefer for the world to use their proprietary file formats, such as .doc (Word for
Windows), .xls (Excel) and .ppt (PowerPoint). As long as most people are using these closed formats, it becomes much
more difficult for alternatives, such as OpenOffice.org and StarOffice, and in the broader sense, Linux, to gain traction.
To help you understand how important this is, imagine you were trying to sell a new CD player for cars. How many CD
players do you think you could sell if you couldn't play the millions of existing CDs in use today? If your CD player
could only play special CDs designed specifically for your player, or if you could only "sort of" play the existing CDs,
you'd have a hard time getting anyone to use your new device. This is the same challenge that Linux has been facing.
Linspire has been fortunate to get most of the popular filetypes to work right out of the box with the Linspire
operating system, but the more open the file formats become, the better for all Linux users.
Because of the increased pressure from businesses who are starting to demand an open format, and competing technologies
such as the OpenDocument standard, Microsoft has a dilemma. On one hand they don't want to open things up, making life
easier for alternatives such as Linux. However, on the other hand, they need to address this new pressure for open
formats, such as the recent move by the State of Massachusetts to OpenDocument, which excluded Microsoft filetypes. So,
Microsoft seems to be doing some slight-of-hand magic. They are publicly embracing open formats to distract attention
from what they really want to see happen. Massachusetts seems to have been fooled by this move and is re-embracing
Microsoft products. But as Sun's VP of global government and community affairs notes in her blog, "There is a lot to be
done between a press release and the realization of a truly open standard, and Office XML is far from being an open
standard now."
Four tricks to look for and be wary of when Microsoft talks about open formats, so you're not fooled by their slight of
hand...
1. Is Microsoft sharing the existing office formats? No! However, they want to give that impression, but they are only
sharing the new Open XML format, not the existing format that millions use today. This way Microsoft gets a ton of press
saying "we're licensing our format to anyone for free," but in fact it's only the new Open XML format, which is NOT what
anyone in the world uses and which has no real value. Microsoft is even calling Open XML the "office format," but
calling a rock a dog doesn't make it a dog, even if you pay lobbyists and lawyers to pat it on the head, put a leash on
it and drag it down the street.
2. Will the new Open XML be the default format? Microsoft has said this will be the case, but they also know it will be
some time yet before they actually go to market with Office 12 — so they could just be buying time, hoping this latest
tempest over open formats blows over, then keep the existing formats as the default. If people save a document and it
still defaults to .doc (the closed format), the vast majority will continue using that format, rendering the Open XML
addition to Office pointless in most cases.
3. Will anyone use Open XML? Even if Microsoft makes Open XML the default, I'm sure they'll include a very easy way to
turn this off and revert back to .doc, .xls and .ppt. Don't be surprised to see a message like this appear the first
time you use Office 12: "It appears most of your files use the standard Microsoft Office format. Would you like to make
that the default?" Because the new format will NOT work with older versions of Microsoft Office (which are the formats
used by millions upon millions of documents today), most users will simply change the default back to the old formats.
When you go to email a word processing file to someone, you'll probably get good at knowing to save it as .doc, as they
may not have the new Office 12 yet. Again, all of this effectively kills Open XML from being adopted in most cases.
4. Will Open XML really even be completely open? Microsoft can say that they want it to be open, but don't be surprised
if there are all sorts of licensing and technical issues that make it virtually impossible to actually use Open XML in
Office 12.
If Microsoft truly wanted to support open formats, why not just open up their existing .doc, .xls, .ppt, and other
currently proprietary formats? This would be far and away the best solution, as it wouldn't cause existing Office users
to change all their files, but would allow for the interoperability Microsoft says they desire. The fact that Microsoft
isn't willing to open these formats pretty much tells us their real motives. They know it will be YEARS before Open XML
replaces these closed, proprietary formats — if it ever does. Until then, they've thrown open source advocates a bone —
albeit one that won't be too tasty.
When a company has billions of dollars riding on the monopoly of their operating system and office suite, don't look for
them to just roll over and join the open format movement. Learn from the magician, and keep your eyes on BOTH hands at
all times! If, like me, you don't want to wait and find out what other tricks Microsoft has up their sleeve, make the
move to Linux, open formats, open standards, and OpenOffice today!
- Kevin
The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of Linspire, Inc.
--
Per iscriversi (o disiscriversi), basta spedire un messaggio con OGGETTO
"subscribe" (o "unsubscribe") a mailto:linuxtrent-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Other related posts:
- » [Linuxtrent] Sul formato Office 12: l'opinione di Kevin Carmony