RSSMass. Secretary Attacks Open Doc Plan
By Nate Mook | Published October 25, 2005, 7:32 PM
Massachusetts' plan to drop Microsoft Office in favor of open standards formats has drawn criticism from the Commonwealth's Secretary of State, who says he has "grave concerns" about switching to OpenDocument. But politics could be playing a larger role in Secretary William Galvin's opposition.
The proposal, which was finalized last month, calls for all electronic documents created by Executive Department agencies after January 1, 2007 to utilize only formats deemed "open," which include OpenDocument and Adobe's PDF. OpenDocument is the centerpiece in the new OpenOffice.org 2.0 release, but is not supported by Microsoft Office.
If it goes through, government employees will be forced to migrate systems to other productivity suites that could include StarOffice, OpenOffice.org, KOffice and IBM Workplace.
As expected, Microsoft responded harshly to the plan, calling it "inconsistent and discriminatory." The company said it has no intention to add support for the OASIS backed format, but will listen to customer feedback on the issue. However, Microsoft has left the door open by announcing it will implement PDF capabilities in Office 12 next year.
Massachusetts' supervisor of records Alan Cote recently told the Boston Globe that Galvin expressed to state secretary of administration and finance Thomas Trimarco that, "we will not be participating." Trimarco is tasked with working out implementation details of the change, which has the backing of Governor Mitt Romney.
Galvin's office offered no details of the Secretary's displeasure, and a spokesperson for Romney simply said that Galvin's concerns would be taken seriously and given consideration. The situation has created a political tug-of-war as the 2006 gubernatorial election looms in the distance.
Romney, a Republican, is expected to announce whether he will run for a second term next month; he is rumored to be considering leaving the position to prepare for a 2008 presidential campaign. And Galvin has been named as a potential candidate for the Democratic seat, which means the two may soon become political rivals.
"On one hand, Secretary Galvin is perhaps the most important person to weigh in on this debate. The Massachusetts Web site describes the Secretary as the Commonwealth's 'principal public information officer,'" noted Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox. "But before debating Microsoft versus OpenDocument formats, I would consider political factors."
Massachusetts Senator Marc Pacheco, also a Democrat and up for re-election in 2006, shares Galvin's apprehensiveness, according to the Boston Globe. As chairman of the Committee on Post Audit and Oversight, Pacheco requested a detailed cost-analysis of the open standards plan from state CIO Peter Quinn, and says the Legislature should have a say in the decision.
Pacheco expressed his concern that OpenDocument would not be usable by people with disabilities, and his committee is holding a hearing at the State House to discuss the format. However, it's not clear whether Pacheco's moves will have any effect.
At the time of the final proposal's announcement, the Massachusetts IT department said it is "authorized under its enabling legislation...to set standards for electronic documents created by Executive Department agencies."
But that hasn't stopped other companies from joining Microsoft in voicing similar concerns about OpenDocument's state of readiness.
In an interview with BetaNews, Corel product manager Richard Carriere claimed OpenDocument was not yet ready for primetime - despite publicly supporting Massachusetts' efforts. "The reality is that there's no adoption of these standards and, as far as I know, there still needs to be some development to make it into a real product," Carriere said.
Still, Massachusetts CIO Quinn is confident the change is a step in the right direction. "There is no evidence that migrating to office applications that support OpenDocument Format will be any more costly than upgrading current applications," the state's IT department said, noting that any company is free to implement OpenDocument support - including Microsoft.
Who needs the dump MSoffice? "tis easy enuf to ADD OOo to your machine, open something ye made in MSoffice with OOo and translate it there. Send that result out to where ever. That's my technique. Easy.
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The claim that the OpenDocument format is not ready for primetime strikes me as somewhat misleading, if not downright specious. Not ready - by what standard? One could argue that previous versions of Windows (3.1, 95, 98, ME) and Office were not ready for primetime at the times of their releases, given the prevalence of the dreaded BSOD and other faults. Note that that did not stop millions of people from using these programs.
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Superficially, this looks like it might encourage competition, but I see blowback here that could seriously cripple Adobe.
Massachusetts is giving all the reason Microsoft needs to embrace and extend PDF. By incorporating PDF into Word, Microsoft can/will make a version of Acrobat and a reader that utterly trounces the performance of Adobe's products.
What's the ratio of Word users to Acrobat users? That's right: Word will become the de facto way to produce and view PDF.
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Interesting that one Massachusetts Senator Marc Pacheco is concerned that Open Document would not be usable by the disabled. As someone legally "disabled" from a TBI I'm delighted that someone's concerned about us ...
What is he worried about? He doesn't say. Are we going to become _more_ disabled because OpenDocument saves text plus formatting as text plus XML formatting compressed in the ZIP format?
When he can come up with a reason, let me know.
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Then keep in mind that the disabled are also usually economically handicapped. So paying for new piece of software every few years is not in their best interest
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But OpenDocument support is part of a lot of "open-source" programs. Even is you needed to buy a corporate/government license, these are extremely more affordable than Microsoft's Office solutions.
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Aaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhhh, all of the comments to the article are about open office vs. microsoft office. That is *NOT* the point of the switch.
The point of the switch is to switch the *format* of the documents saved to an open format. That open format happens to be currently supported by open office and not microsoft office. However, the format could be supported by microsoft if they wanted to.
The point of supporting an open format is that you don't have to upgrade your software, and the format won't change. You never have to wory about microsoft upgrading word and changing the format the program uses. After this change, there are no further format changes needed, unlike the constant upgrading for microsoft word and the lack of backward compatibility for some things in word.
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I agree in most parts.
The main point of the ODF is to ensure interoperability between competing programs as long as they support the format. This would mean that a company that uses program A would be able to implement a smooth transition to program B if they became disenchanted with the former program. In other words, if Microsoft supported ODF everybody would have a smooth transition over to OpenOffice.org.
Another point of the ODF is that, despite possible enhancements being added to it in the future, all documents saved in older versions will still be readable by future versions.
Unfortunately, if new features are inserted into the format that would mean that YOU WOULD have to upgrade your software to take advantage of the new features but, as I stated above, you will still be able to access the older documents without the need to also update them.
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I agree with you. State depts must and should produce documents and provide services to all users irrespective of how the users access their systsms. One example where this fell bad was with the FEMA desaster website claims forms could only be accessed if you were using IE.
The State deparments should not be promoting private industry and the MA state have and are doing just this.
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In case you aren't aware, most people use Windows because nearly all software requires it. Most people do NOT use Windows because they enjoy using the operating system. The only real alternative to Windows is an Apple Mac (yuck).
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Linux is an alternative to Windoze and Slackintosh....linux is a far better OS than the two put together. :)
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hummmm well...
Money appart, migration from one plataform to another, could be as messy as switching from one version to another, since something always change!!!
From version to version of MSoffice, there's always changes, and trainning is needed, time to get "thing's rigth", and there's always private our public complaints form end users.
And also that represents the same cost's that some here try to imply that migration to an open source aplication imply!!!
So changig for another app will have all that!!!
But that's what happens with any change!!!!
Love MSOffice, but Open Office for instance and others alike are more cost efective!
There's cost's in any change!!!
If you change from MS version theres cost to!!!
Changing MS version = licence + (all the regular cost's from changing)
Changing to open source = (all the regular cost's from changing)
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Interesting related article...even mentions Ed Oswald with BN : http://www.tgdaily.com/2...or_office_12/index.html
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I think this is just a blind ignorant fear of change myself. As for myself, I prefer OpenOffice over MS office. (1) It has all the features that I ever used in MS Office, never used outlook so that's no big loss. (2)It doesn't cost up in the nose blead section for my to aquire OpenOffice whereas with MS Office it cost several $100. So from a cost point of view OO is the clear choice. As far as features and usability go, sure MS office has much more features but the biggest portion of those features never see the light of day. This is either because people don't use them, or don't know they are there, The latter is the reason for the GUI change in Office 12, people were asking for features that were already preset in ofice. Now on the ease of use I have actually found some of the features I used in MSOffice easier to find in OO so I can't figure out what people are complaining about on that score. As far as I'm concerned OO is not harder to use and in some cases is easier.
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you need to add training and lost productivity time in as a cost factor when you switch over to OO to validate your second point.
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True it may cost you in the short term but in the long term there will be much saved in licensing fees. This may not make a difference though. At any rate OO isn't quite ready for big business. Now for home and small business there's really no contest on the price point.
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Any person with a little intelligence can switch between both applications without the need for training. The differences between OOo and MSOffice are so minimal (for the average user) that to claim that you will need to train people is totally ridiculous.
If needed, a simple online (ie:HTML) tutorial or FAQ can be provided to deal with the little differences between the tools. Besides, if you upgrade to a newer version of MS Office, you STILL has to spend money on training.
The question is, do you pay a for a little training for OOo and save the money paid for the software, or do you want to pay for the BIG cost of training (according to MS, Office Vista's UI will be completely different to XP and older versions) AND the high cost of a new version of MS Office??
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I think people have lost the whole point of this. yet another M$ v anti-M$ .
personally I use openoffice at home and work, heres why.
Lets look at the whole office debate from an enduser Money point of view. Lets say I was to offer 2 products, oh say a blue i-pod and a black i-pod Im selling blue for €500 and black for €1, both operate exactly the same have wonderful functionality, everything except colour. Now what are you goin to choose?
unfortunitly this isnt , though should be, what the whole office v open office thing is about. Why pay through the nose for something that does pretty much the same thing when something cheaper exists. I'm certain most of you reading this dont just walk into a shop, ask for a can of coke and accept a hyped price of €5 when the shop nextdoor sells the same for 50c.
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I can't decide if this is just an ignorant fear of change, or if it's just American politics hard at work. Big business rules in the US, so if Microsoft's back stops getting scratched, certain "anonymous funding" dries up.
I reckon the switch from Microsoft to Open Source is a good thing for everyone. Except Bill Gates. But he doesn't need any more money anyway, so that's ok!
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There is so much Anti-MSFT on this site that its sickening.
"OMG!!!!!MSFT IS TEH DEVILZ!!!LOLZ!1oneeleven"
What a bunch of morons. Fact is, MSFT knows what they're doing, people love MSFT and will continue to buy, use and implement their products, despite the cost. If it works and works well, use it. Its just not cost effective to totally dump MS Office, go to a new format and have to teach all 500,000 or however many employees how to use it. Who has time for that? Not many companies do I would assume. As for Mass., I think they'll give up on this plan and see the err in their ways. I'm not against open source, I love OO.o, but I love Office more. I just really don't think OO.o is ready for the corporate/enterprise environment. Home/Small business use? Yeah, go for it. If they try to implement OO.o in big corporate environments now, it WILL fail and will cause companies to lose revenue. That's just my take on it.
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"and have to teach all 500,000 or however many employees how to use it."
Well - what kind of people are working there?!?! Seem to be totally unfit employees who are not really knowing what they're doing.
If this was some 20 years ago - okay. Back then, every program had its own short-cuts and ways to work.
But today - !?!?!
Where nearly every software uses the same surface, it is really ridiculous or a shame, if people are not able to switch from one menu structure to the next.
And - btw - OOffice has the declared aim to be as near to the usage pattern of MS products than possible.
So this is not really an argument in my eyes.
But there is another one:
The only two products which I would admit to be superior to their corresponding OOffice counterparts are ACCESS and EXCEL.
So - what sense would it make to switch to just two new components (Writer and Draw)?
Here you are right: this would end in a disaster.
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Our accounting department tried the switch to OO.o. I don't believe I've ever heard so much complaining before in my life on how everything was different and "why in the world are we switching again to this...it sucks?". We eventually had to switch bad to Office.
I use OO.o at home, Office at work. I prefer Office, but I could use OO.o if I had to. But, I'm just pointing out that when the dude says they'll be a lot of disgruntled employees that refuse to learn it/switch, he's most likely correct.
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nothing personal man but you obviously haven't ever worked with state employees before. this change will cause chaos for the first month and for who knows how long after.
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couldn't agree more. oo might be superior in many ways but people just haven't used it and that's the biggest barrier to entry.
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Nobody is saying they cannot buy Microsoft products. Microsoft can choose to be in the group of applications if they want to. Microsoft just has to add OpenDocument support in the next two years.
This is about being able to choose from multiple vendors on an open format. The application itself does not have to be open.
This will bring on multiple companies being able to compete on level ground. So far Microsoft doesn't like that.
This move will allow more long term freedom. Instead of upgrading to newer versions from the same vendor all of the time, this will allow you to re-evaluate ALL vendors, with little fear of getting tied to one for the long haul.
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No suprise there then, pretty much all decisions made by US senators have some back handed reason. US Goverment is very corrupt, not just Bush and his cronies, all parties.
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I bet that the Massachusetts Secretary of State owns some MS stock or is just getting those pockets lined with a little extra cash.
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Kiss the arse of Microsoft may provide him a good place after he retired.
I use OpenOffice in home and found it's very good, especially without the animated helpless icon eatup megabytes of memory.
Please donate to OpenSource project you like, in order to keep them alive.
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I have both ms office and the new Open Office. I find myself using Open Office more and more.
Now considering how both programs work, and the cost I would recommend Open Office to anyone. Will I throw away ms office? Hell no I spent 200 and something dollars on it,but I dont plan on using it much any more unless Im force to for one reason or another.
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"Will I throw away ms office? Hell no I spent 200 and something dollars on it."
Wize choice, but once your copy becomes outdated, you will probably find yourself using OOo even more.
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Thats one piece of software that I wont be investing in anymore. So yes sir, ill be finding myself and my family using Open Office a hell of alot more.
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Waah, bad bad open standards!
Cry me a river, it's about time office document standards were re-defined away from a monopolist.
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Yeah! Part of what will help ready OpenDoc is this migration! I don't think OpenDoc will ever be "ready enough" for MS anyway, think about this:
Why doesn't MS Office support MS Works formats, and vice versa? Is that not ready for public to use?
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I love people that jump on the anti-MS bandwagon.
IT generally means you can't think for yourself. For one thing, give me your definition of "monopoly". This has been in court already several times, there is NO basis for MS being considered a monopoly.
Secondly, your statement is plain stupid in itself. office document standards were re-defined...??!? WTF! The very fact they they even ARE standards is proof that you are being simply contrary, for the sake of argument. Its totally crass.
Third, Where is Word Perfect? They were the monopoly. They were a monopoly long before anyone cared there were monopolies because everyone and their grandmother used it. It was good, but it pushed people to use things like macros and lame ALT, Shift, CTRL function key assignments, before there was a mouse.
Office may not be perfect, but its come a long way baby. The standard is not defined by a product, its determined by its user base. A monopoly is considered, ONLY when a company is deemed to be driven by their own greed, AND no competition.
MS didn't drive Word Perfect out. Word Perfect didn't adopt windows, and they failed to maintain leverage, and they lost. Even when Word sucked so bad, it was as useless as a non-correcting type writer. But at LEAST it was graphical and it had potential. It was marketed and maintained by USERS!!
People wanted office to persevere, and they wanted OFfice to be THE standard, because it was and still is easy to use and highly portable. Lotus? Ha! That's the worst pile of junk ever. AmiPro? Yeah it was good, but not as good as Word has become.
Fine throw away MS, but Office is an icon, moreso than just the word. A government trying to adopt an open standard for political gain, is truly a statement of futility.
Everyone is pissed they didn't buy stock earlier in MS, and now that the stock is 50 or 60 bucks a share, its too expensive to invest.
I find it truly funny, people continue to slam MS, when it has an incredible approval rating..
You want to blame someone? Try your neighbor, and most of the people in your company, because they use it and love it. Open will fail, because there is noone to back it. People can't even agree on a version of so called "open Linux" and you expect me to believe they will pick an office product? Please!
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Umm. MS works is garbage. Its free ware. Quit being a cheap skate and buy office. BTW, Office DOES support Works.. the extensions are different, but the file formats will open and are editable in Office. Works won't support Office for obvious reasons...
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Where did I claim to be anti-microsoft?
If that's all you have then you have less than nothing.
How in the world did you come up with "there is NO basis for MS being considered a monopoly"?
http://www.google.com/se...&btnG=Google+Search
Microsoft announced just last week that they refuse to support the opendoc standard, I hate to be the one to burst your bubble but that is a predatory tactic by a convicted monopolist.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-b...edatory&x=0&y=0
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-b...=tactic&x=0&y=0
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-b...=guilty&x=0&y=0
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-b...onopoly&x=0&y=0
http://www.infoplease.co...6/history/A0844878.html
http://www.economist.com...dly.cfm?Story_ID=687513
I never said Office wasn't a good product, nor would I because it is.
Glad you wanted to share your hatred of people with their own opinions, but you should probably try to back them with facts which your comment is seriously lacking on all fronts.
MS's approval rating has been in the toilet for years, they are trying but they just can't seem to give consumers what they want.
Shoot, they can't even make their own employees happy!
http://www.forbes.com/bu...ware-0916markets03.html
Microsoft's stock has been FLAT for years, and it is no where near the "50-60" bucks a share mark. More misinformation! Who in their right mind would buy into a FLAT stock? Nobody.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=2y
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Why don't you buy him a copy if you think he should have it.
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IMHO, there's no need to "Anti-Microsoft", just support OpenSource whole heartly, this will leave MS dried dead.
We have too many works to do improving OpenSource software, free-code and cheap supporting fee is the coming era of computing.
If MS is wise, they'll support the opendoc or other OpenSource project for compatibility, this move shows they're stupid enough to stay alive ... or continue play their dirty tricks by eliminating opponents.
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"MS works is garbage" - agreed, and so what if it's freeware? All freeware = garbage? i'll get office illegally before i buy it, but i'll get open office legally before i get ms office.
BTW, Works is not freeware: http://microsoft.links.o...B11-00858&nRGID=488
"Works won't support Office for obvious reasons..."
Which is what i was saying, similar reasons to why they won't support OpenDoc. Not simply "because it's not ready"
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"MS's approval rating has been in the toilet for years, they are trying but they just can't seem to give consumers what they want."
OK, now YOU have the misinformation. The fact that MS is almost 90% of the whole market for Operating systems...I would say that makes them pretty much out of the toilet.
"Microsoft announced just last week that they refuse to support the opendoc standard, I hate to be the one to burst your bubble but that is a predatory tactic by a convicted monopolist."
I didn't read the web sites nor do I need to, that's referring to the OASIS format which IS BASED on XML. Guess what? Why should MS support OASIS, declared a standard just last May, that is XML in neat rapping paper? It has nothing to do with Microsoft. I love you guys. You want MS to quit copying everyone else, now you want them to support everyone else? I do agree that MS is definately a monopoly, no news there...
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MONOPOLY - it's when ONE company sells product, what CAN NOT BE directly changed to something else. MS Office IS that product. You can't switch from MS Office to anything because of format incompatibility => Microsoft IS MONOPOLY.
You can't switch from Windows to Linux, because Windows apps don't want to run on Linux (without, or sometimes even with WINE!) => Microsoft is monopoly.
MS Office is not really bad - but monopoly is!
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About 15 years ago I happened to be working at a computer fair in London. Microsoft was launching the then new idea of TOOLBARS. At that time there was a legal issue over the name and the concept, so WordPerfect's toolbars, which launched at the same show, were called BUTTONBARS. WordPerfect did embrace Windows, and was up to the minute, feature for feature, with Office, but at that time Microsoft was trying hard to push its competitors out of the way, whether or not they embraced the Windows ethos. One casualty of this war was Wordstar, which made the shift from DOS but did not augment the keyboard command structure with a suitable GUI. Hence it alienated its old users and failed to attract new users.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with WordPerfect. It's problem is that it has been marginalized in the market, and is now not in a position to compete with Office, and has no chance against free offerings like OO.
As for the state interfering with the software choices of Massachusetts, that's out of order and looks very much like bias toward Microsoft.
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Who is "you guys", and why shouldn't they support standards?
They have 90% of the market because Windows is installed on everything under the sun. There is absolutely no other reason, and you can't prove otherwise. :-P
You said: "OK, now YOU have the misinformation."
Then you said: "didn't read the web sites nor do I need to,"
So, you didn't look at the evidence yet you continued to disagree with me based solely on what's in your mind?
"Why should MS support OASIS"
Well, for starters because people are starting to use it and they need to be compatible with everyone else.
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You really have no idea what a monopoly is, do you?
You keep claiming to, and you keep making statements like,
"A monopoly is considered, ONLY when a company is deemed to be driven by their own greed, AND no competition."
...which only proves your ignorance.
If you're just an idiot, you have my sympathy. If you're just trolling, /. welcomes you, BN does not.
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Didnt read the web sites because I have no need to. You are stating OPINION yourself:
"...I hate to be the one to burst your bubble but that is a 'predatory tactic by a convicted monopolist.' "
That is your opinion. MS was LIABLE in several cases, never do I recall them being "convicted" for being monopolists. Was MS convicted by Meriam-Webster? Or OpenOffice.org? Or Infoplease.com? HAVE YOU EVEN READ THE SHERMAN ACT, OR JUST READ OTHER PEOPLE'S BIAS OPINION ON WHAT IT SAYS? Venting, sorry, and I'm off topic now...moving on:
"...Well, for starters because people are starting to use it and they need to be compatible with everyone else."
9 million--no wait! 10 million people use it? If it was widely used, trust me, MS would support it in their next Office release. Ok yeah that's opinion too I suppose... the 'misinformation' I was refering too was about your comment about MS'es approval being lower than ever. Where was that info taken from?
P.S. I read the websites now. Also found one where Corel themselves admit OASIS is not widely used, among many other interesting things: http://www.tgdaily.com/2...or_office_12/index.html
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Todays news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/...5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
"The federal judge overseeing Microsoft Corp.'s business practices scolded the company Wednesday over a proposal to force manufacturers to tether iPod-like devices to Microsoft's own music player software.
Microsoft abandoned the idea after a competitor protested."
"April 3, 2000 | Guilty, guilty, guilty. Pulling no punches, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled on Monday that Microsoft had abused its monopoly power and was guilty of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act."
http://www.salon.com/tec.../04/03/microsoft_ruling/
What part of guilty do you not understand?
Oh, then there is this:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2064
'nuff said
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"What part of guilty do you not understand?"
Yep. You know, you could have at least picked one case WHERE MS DID NOT WIN IN APPEAL, but I find it funny you picked one where the appellate court reversed the decision: http://money.cnn.com/200...nology/microsoft_appeal/
"The appeals court ruled that Judge Jackson improperly conducted himself in the case, leaving himself open to the appearance he was biased against Microsoft.
'We vacate the judgment on remedies, because the trial judge engaged in impermissible ex parte contacts by holding secret interviews with members of the media and made numerous offensive comments about Microsoft officials in public statements outside of the courtroom, giving rise to an appearance of partiality,' the court wrote in the opinion. "
They did find MS guilty of "illegal abuse of monopoly", but the original decision you linked to, was "vacate[d] in full". Point is you need to understand the actual events, and quit reading strictly biased opinions about them. Search google for the story and quit reading strictly anti-MS companies stories. If you do read other opinions, and you're just throwing this one, it was a poor example--use the Sun vs. Microsoft case instead, where MS is FORCED to remove "Microsoft Java" from Windows.
I don't care if you continue to hate or dislike (or whatever you would call it) Microsoft, just get the facts straight.
'Nuff said.
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"We upheld the district court's ruling that Microsoft violated § 2 of the Sherman Act by the ways in which it maintained its monopoly, but we reversed the district court's finding of liability for attempted monopolization"
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr...f204400/204468.htm#IIIB
"Section 2. Monopolizing trade a felony; penalty
Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court."
http://www.stolaf.edu/pe...t/statutes/sherman.html
I said GUILTY right?
'nuff said
I don't "hate" Microsoft, it would be pretty petty to hate a company. I do however dislike their business practices, which continue today as proven by todays news. You got me on that last article. I was scanning for keywords, and in that one case didn't read the whole article, but just part of it before I posted it.
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