RSSMicrosoft to License Office 'Look and Feel' for Free
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 21, 2006, 5:37 PM
With Office 2007 radically reorganizing the way users think and work with applications -- hopefully more for the better than for the worse -- Microsoft is recognizing the possibility that other developers may want to copy the new suite's distinctive style. For instance, if the collapsible ribbon catches on as a menu bar substitute, other vendors may want to try to capitalize.
It seems there isn't an aspect of intellectual property licensing with which Microsoft isn't concerned in extensive detail. Today, the company announced a royalty-free licensing program for developers who want to make use of Office's new, distinctive style.
The question that naturally arises isn't whether there are strings attached, but rather how many. Today the answer came: As Office 2007's "chief stylist" Jensen Harris announced on his blog, along with the perpetual, royalty-free license will be a 120+ page document detailing the precise use of Microsoft's meticulously designed features.
For licensees to remain protected, they must abide by these guidelines, which will apparently be as extensive and strict as were the original Common User Access guidelines from IBM almost 19 years ago.
As Harris describes: "If you choose to implement the Office UI, you sign up for the program by accepting the license terms and giving us a little bit of information about your product. There's no fee, you don't owe Microsoft any royalties, and the license is perpetual - meaning that the terms won't change.
"To stay within the terms of the license, you must follow these guidelines," Harris continues. "We want to ensure that when someone implements the Ribbon (for example) that they do so the right way...and in a way consistent with how it works in Office."
A check of MSDN's new Office UI licensing site reveals that the guidelines have yet to be completed, though the license itself is available, and mandates that licensees must follow those guidelines. A quick read of the two-page license does not indicate that licensees must disclose any information, or are under any obligation to provide any feedback to Microsoft whatsoever. So the extent of the "little bit of information" to which Harris refers, isn't clear.
However, the license does state that if Microsoft makes changes to its guidelines, or if the company believes a licensee is not in compliance, it will notify the licensee of the changes it needs to make to its software to remain in compliance, and give the licensee six months to produce adequate changes.
Microsoft has released a preview document with excerpts that provide some peeks into how extensive its Office UI guidelines will be. For example, with regard to the behavior of the ribbon, its contents must be capable of repositioning and realigning themselves when the application's container window is resized.
"Resizing the width of the application window MUST change the layout of controls on the Ribbon," reads the preview document. "The layout of controls on the Ribbon MUST change in real-time when the application window is resized by dragging with the mouse. The change in the layout of controls on the Ribbon MUST NOT be delayed until after the application window has been resized and the left mouse button is released."
The document goes on to explain the multiple sizes of icons that appear in buttons within a ribbon, how the hierarchy of a ribbon category decides which sizes of icons appear (either the original or the smaller "variant") when a container window is large, medium, or small, and how to decide which of the larger icons in a ribbon category represents the entire category when the window is at its smallest applicable size.
As Microsoft general manager for the Office client Takeshi Numoto stated in a scripted Q&A on Microsoft's corporate Web site today, the Office UI license isn't necessary for companies wishing to build add-ins for Office, or new classes of so-called Office Business Applications (OBA). The license applies to individuals or companies that wish to produce new, stand-alone software that follows Microsoft's established look-and-feel.
If the preparation to defend the "look and feel" of Microsoft applications seems strangely, ironically familiar...it brings back memories of May 1989, when Apple was in the midst of a heated lawsuit against Microsoft for allegedly violating its "look and feel" for Macintosh.
At that time, for the original Computer Shopper Information Exchange, I wrote the following about the first rulings in that landmark case, "It has been Apple's contention that Microsoft violated a written agreement between the two companies licensing certain parts of the Macintosh 'look-and-feel' to Microsoft for specifically the original version of Windows. The ruling states that agreement does not extend to the current version of Windows.
"If Apple can successfully claim these features are the copyright of their creator, then Xerox would win all the spoils of this war," I continued in 1989. "However, the use of the menu bar over the top of the screen at all times, as well as the trash can, were Apple creations, not Xerox. Xerox used menu bars over individual windows, and weren't cartoonists enough to use trash cans for deletions...What also has surprised me throughout all this is that of all the really good things Apple has brought us through the years, the company seems most willing to defend such relatively trivial things as menu bars and trash cans."
Fast-forward 17 years, and the chessboard is being set up again, this time with ribbons and variants instead of menu bars and trash cans - and this time without knowing who the opponent will be.
they could not pay me to use it... I hate it and find it inefficient and counterintuitive. It is a bad joke.
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|I think it is brilliant. Imagine a lot of lukewarm feedback on the new UI. What better way to sell more copies than to encourage other products with similar "look and feel"? The more familiar people becomes, the more likely they are to spend the big bucks.
Fascinating!!!
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|What I find most worrying about all of this is the way in which it is stated that the ribbon must resize when the application window is resized. This is fine on a Windows system, where the menubar, and now the ribbon, are contained within a window, but how does this apply to the Macintosh UI? There's a big difference between the Windows UI and the Macintosh UI in this respect - there is no application window as such for the Mac, so my concern would be that the ribbon UI cannot be applied to the Mac.
If Microsoft succeed in transitioning users/corporates across to the ribbon style of UI (clearly something that is in question) for both their software and that of other third party developers, that might increase the problem of getting people to switch to the Mac, because the difference in UI becomes much greater.
This is not all bad, of course - if people generally do not like the ribbon-style UI it could be a positive reason to switch to the Mac... But knowing Microsoft's tactics I am highly suspicious of this move and the motives behind it.
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|Hmmm:
statement 1: "the license is perpetual - meaning that the terms won't change"
statement 2: "A check of MSDN's new Office UI licensing site reveals that the guidelines have yet to be completed, though the license itself is available, and mandates that licensees must follow those guidelines."
A blank check written to Microsoft? Legally, that wouldn't constitute a "change" of terms (which exist at the time of the agreement binding) however, it doesn't preclude them from adding new terms which could further restrict or override previous terms. Talk about spin.
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|OMG what a setup. All M$ has to do is win a single case against somebody copying "their" style and you've got a precedent. After that anyone who replicates ANY aspect of the new GUI will be subject to immediate prosecution..unless of course M$ gets its kickbacks. The irony is that Apple LOST exactly this same case when Windows came out. But none of that matters, because as we know all prior art comes from Redmond.
Vista and Office '07 blow, btw. Hard.
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|Did you read the article?
Today, the company announced a royalty-free licensing program for developers who want to make use of Office's new, distinctive style.
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|Ok, so, first off... The UI belongs to MSFT... just as any UI that I design belongs solely to me. Plain and simple. If I don't want someone to use it, guess what? I am well within my rights to sue to the fullest extent of the law.
MSFT is saying "if you want to use our UI, go ahead, but it has to be this way". So, what is wrong with that? If I decided to release a license around my UI, and it was big enough that it could be identified as my UI, hell, I would set restrictions also.
~dnc
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|The reason Apple lost that case was that Jobs ripped off the earlier Xerox user interface. For the most part, user interfaces are considered "forms" and under copyright law, forms (such as a calendar design) are not protected.
Icons, however, are protected.
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|This is really lame. MS encourages developers to maintain their apps to a certain "Windows Standard" (and so do most consumers) and now they want to license that suggestion?
Whatever.
The whole "ribbon" concept is unappealing anyway.
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|There is limit that competitor of office cannot use it.
and the ribbon is not really new. the Openoffice.org already have simmiliar things long before office 2007
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|um, WordPerfect 5.x had it over 10 years ago.
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|The only people I've come across in beta-testing Office 2007 with a dozen businesses this past year who liked the Ribbon were either clients' youngest children, or their oldest family members. Everyone else — except Microsoft's marketing department — has hated it and found it inefficient and counterintuitive relative to previous versions.
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|Yeah, it feels very strange to someone used to office, which is why it is fitting that you site "youngest children" and "oldest family members" as those that like it, as they are most likely to be the least familiar with it.
It is counterintuitive because people familiar with Office are having to relearn where the things they have been using for years are located now. As far as MS' marketing department, they may love to market it, but its their UI team that are responsible for it...they got tired of people asking for features that were already in Office.
Is it better? That remains to be seen, I didn't play around with it too long as I currently develop in MS Access 2003 and don't have time for such things. It felt very awkward to me, but so did Vista and IE7 at first, and now I like their interfaces. One thing is for sure, the UI team have found a way to make people look through the features again. Maybe that alone will help people find the features they have been "waiting" for.
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|I agree with your post.
We are a law firm and we spent a LOT of money training users to go from Word Perfect for DOS to Word 97, 2000, XP. We stopped with XP, it for us was the pinnacle of perfection for Office and the newer versions aren't changing our minds about this.
If we are going to invest in training again our users, it's going to be for a really good reason, not because of a ribbon.
Vista and IE7 are no brainers. They bring immediate benefit and require little training, and don't impact people's work. Of course, for home, I stick with ubuntu/linux. Damned if I will pay Microsoft out of my salary for bells and whistles.
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|What??
You think Vista requires less training than Office?
Office is just that - office - it looks slightly different, but it all acts the same.
Vista is different.. just plain different. Different look, different feel and a different way of doing many things. More changes when moving to Vista then it does when moving to office.
Have you tried either of them?
oh.. and as far as paying them - get the 3yr Software Assurance - you get a ton of benefits, easy budgeting and upgrades as long as you keep up the assurnace. I've done lots of analysis of this and its cheaper in the long run by cost alone and much cheaper when you add in all the extras.
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|Good points, Grazer. I actually like the Ribbon in Excel a lot, but find I don't need it much in Word, and toggle CTRL+F1 to keep it hidden there. And I love IE7's UI.
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|I do agree that Vista and IE7 are fine, actually better than what we have been using.
But: "We stopped with XP, it for us was the pinnacle of perfection for Office"
You're kidding. Office XP was like the beta version of Office '03 (which is the best version since '97). They have finally made the task pain into a useful task pane and Outlook is the best version ever.
Office 2007 is a farce. You can't find anything that's not basic and you probably already know a keyboard shortcut for. It takes up way too much room on the screen and is only customizable by a programmer. The loss of real toolbars is extremely disorienting. To add to the insult, there is no provision to revert to the older interface.
Please do not buy or copy this UI as it is the worst idea since MS Bob (or perhaps the Search Puppy). I hope it flops on its face. This is a hard slap in the face to those of us who have been using Office products for years (in my case, since Word 1.1)
I do agree that Vista and IE7 are fine, actually better than what we have been using.
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|Allowing them to do this means Microsoft effectively owns the color "gray". In so many ways...
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|Why? Its the same thing as if apple licensed for free its ipod wheel.
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