For all its endless talk about really, really wanting to open up its documentation to enable interoperability with its products, Microsoft is still dragging its feet on delivery of this documentation, according to a US judge as reported by Ars Technica yesterday.
Today saw Kollar-Kotelly hold the latest hearing on the status of the consent agreements, and a number of reports suggest that there still seem to be problems there (no legal documents arising from the hearing have been filed yet). Although the Dow Jones Newswire seems to think everything is fine, other reports seem to contradict this.
Reuters, however, indicates that the Judge was a bit annoyed that Microsoft filed a document that suggested it viewed itself as being in full compliance with the agreement, given that the documentation wasn't ready. Referring to the 2009 date for the lifting of the consent agreement, she said, "That's not going to happen unless these things get done."
As a platform company, interoperability should help Microsoft. The problem is that Microsoft isn't simply a platform company anymore. It's an applications company, too. This hybrid problem can plague any big software company that has ambitions to creep into other fiefdoms: witness Oracle's move into the hardware appliance market, for example.
All that said, Microsoft has been making some headway on its documentation. It was thanks to the EU forcing open Microsoft's documentation that my own company, Alfresco, was able to support the SharePoint protocol to facilitate interoperability with Microsoft Office. I'm sure other companies are enjoying similar benefits.
However, it's frustrating that it has taken so long, and so much government pressure just to get Microsoft to do what is right for its platform business. Yes, interoperability may crimp Microsoft's plans for its applications business. Even if so, it's time for Microsoft to stop talking a big interoperability game and then choosing to ride the bench.
In the wake of Google's attempted intellectual property landgrab (and subsequent about face), ReadWriteWeb suggests that a new "terms of service regime" is needed for online applications like Google.
I agree, but also think we can go one step further and "open source" legal documents.
The idea is not actually mine. John Robb, vice president of marketing and product management at Zimbra, suggested the idea to me after reading about Y Combinator's idea to offer standardized venture funding documents.
It's a great idea, one that we'll be exploring further at OSBC 2009. There's little reason for similarly situated start-ups to each be paying law firms to recycle the same documents. Sure, it provides job security for first-year law students, but I'd rather be spending my law firm retainer on value-added services, not a logo change on the contract the firm uses for all of its clients.
Using a myriad of ostensibly different legal documents also creates unnecessary work for in-house counsel at would-be buyers. It would be much better to simply have the industry standardize on subscription/license agreements, nondisclosure agreements, etc., and then stand firm on terms. It becomes easier to stand firm, of course, if you know that the weight of industry standards is behind you.
Robb is onto something here. We should open-source legal documents. The expertise to back them up can't easily be commoditized, but documents like confidentiality agreements absolutely can. Forget profileration of open-source licenses. The real problem is proprietary license/document proliferation. Let's fix that.
Who's afraid of open formats like Open Document Format? Microsoft, for one. The company is locked in a furious lobbying battle with the Dutch government to block a proposal that would see the ODF format mandated to ensure that no single company owns its future. Imagine that. Macworld writes:
... Read moreProposed legislation that would mandate the use of the Open Document Format (ODF) across the entire Dutch government has infuriated Microsoft. A group promoting open standards sees no threat, however, and has invited Microsoft to join its ranks.
On Wednesday the Dutch parliament will discuss a plan to mandate use of the Open Document Format (ODF) at government agencies. The proposal is part of a wider plan to increase the sustainability of information and innovation, while lowering costs through the reuse of data.
Glyn Moody has written a lengthy, probing piece on the bust-up of the Open Document Format and its weird morphing into Compound Document Format, with a twist of Da Vinci. At the heart of the change? Microsoft Sharepoint.
While most of the open-source world sleeps, Microsoft is gearing up for a truly innovative take on its next-generation operating system. Sharepoint, not Windows, is the future of Microsoft's intended dominance.
This line of thinking probably explains the widespread incomprehension that greeted the [Open Document] Foundation's decision to abandon ODF. Supporters of the latter believe that it is by far the best document format, one that provides numerous benefits to users, notably freedom from lock-in. Hiser couldn't agree more: "We don't want OOXML to ever see the light of day, and certainly we feel deeply that it needs to be rejected by ISO finally and conclusively." But he adds:
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On the assumption that not everyone reads comments, I wanted to post a comment here that was made in response to my earlier post on Live Documents. Net net: Live Documents is much more interesting than I had originally supposed. In fact, I just registered for an account. Here's why.
Is Live Documents simply a competitor to Microsoft Word? No:
[W]e offer the entire Office suite - online equivalents of Word, Excel and PowerPoint - and not just Word as you have mentioned. If it was only Word then yes, many of your points on create vs. collaborate are true but it is far more complex when your data is in a spreadsheet or presentation.
What about the limitations inherent in being a pureplay SaaS/browser-based model?
...[W]hen we say that we are an "online" Office suite, we are not limiting ourselves to just a browser-centric experience. While we do offer a browser-based service that offers functionality equivalent to Word, Excel and PowerPoint, we also offer a client application that makes your existing version of Microsoft Office web-enabled. ... Read more
Sabeer Bhatia, one of the co-founders of Hotmail (bought by Microsoft for $400 million ten years ago), is on a mission to lobotomize Microsoft's $20 billion Office business. He has an uphill climb.
Bhatia is behind Live Documents, a web-based competitor to Microsoft Word, which purports to offer enterprises an upgrade path beyond the $400/seat offer from Microsoft. The question is, "Don't we already have Google Docs for this?"
Designed to help consumers avoid expensive upgrades and to foster collaboration on a secure internet platform, Live Documents matches features found in Office 2007, the most recent version. It will be given away to individuals with 100MB of free data storage space per user. Companies will pay for the system, either hosted remotely or on an internal server, at a discount to Microsoft?s licensed technology. Aricent, an Indian software services group with 6,700 employees, is the first client.
... Read more
When U.S. presidential candidates start promoting their open-source and open-document platforms, you know that the open-source movement has finally arrived. I mean, what could be more flattering than to be someone's five-second sound bite?
OK, lots of things. But I still liked reading that Barak Obama has made open document formats part of his campaign, as he noted in a recent speech at Google:
We have to use technology to open up our democracy. It's no coincidence that one of the most secretive Administrations in history has favored special interests and pursued policies that could not stand up to sunlight. As President, I'll change that. I'll put government data online in universally accessible formats.
Namely, ODF. Maybe. Or not.
... Read moreThere are so many features listed on Apple's Leopard landing page that it might be easy to overlook this one (which Glyn Moody pointed out): OpenDocument Format, or ODF, support in the new operating system. It's baked right into OS X, and TextEdit will also support both Microsoft Word 2007 and OpenDocument formats.
At some point, Microsoft may also come around to ODF. In the meantime, there's Apple. Innovative as usual.
[UPDATED: As someone pointed out to me in an email, I made a mistake on "OpenDocument" in TextEdit. That appears to be a reference to Microsoft's confusingly named "open" format. But the ODF reference was right.]
Ian Howells, Alfresco's Chief Marketing Officer, just shared with me some intriguing data that I thought would be useful for more than just Alfresco. I've long suspected that documentation was a key driver of purchases in open source, and here's some data that confirms this view:
... Read moreYou read things like this and it makes you wonder why IT departments continue to throw away money on proprietary licenses why you bother paying taxes at all [See note below]. In this case, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) spent $3 million on a document management system from Documentum, and it has been a complete waste of money.
The PCAOB tries to blame itself for the waste, but the reality is that it's a combination of overpriced and overly complex software wrapped in a proprietary license, and an effort to force-feed square-peg technology onto round-peg people.
Open source could have dramatically reduced the PCAOB's risk:
... Read more
