RSSMicrosoft's Interop Chief: People Should Choose Their Own Standards
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published June 15, 2007, 3:21 PM
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SCOTT FULTON, BetaNews: Obviously the Microsoft/Novell collaboration so far has borne good fruit, here. We have SUSE Enterprise Linux 10 being added as one of the guest operating systems that Windows Server Virtualization will support, we have Microsoft reselling SUSE Enterprise Linux coupons, so there is a good business collaboration going forth there. For the collaboration principle that you talked about to be successful, should Microsoft extend a similar invitation to everyone else, equally, in the same general product space?
TOM ROBERTSON, General Manager for Interoperability and Standards, Microsoft: We have made clear that we're interested in working with anyone who wants to work with us in a collaborative and productive way.
SCOTT FULTON: And in making that clear, have you extended a similar covenant promise to the one you made with Novell and with Xandros, that protects their customers from future claims on intellectual property?
TOM ROBERTSON: We've made it clear we want to work with others who have an interest in working with us.
SCOTT FULTON: So you've extended that invitation, and right now, it's up to them to come to you.
TOM ROBERTSON: You can't really say how these things develop. I don't want to generalize it, to how the discussions begin, but we can't be any clearer in terms of our interest in working more broadly with others in the community.
If people have an interest in our intellectual property, we've made clear that we are open for business. They should call us up. If we've got something that's programmatically available, they should take a look at the programmatic offering and, if it meets their needs, great. That's pretty straightforward. If it doesn't, and they want something else, they need to talk to us.
"I don't think IBM or any other entity can speak on behalf of the [open source] community. I think IBM speaks on behalf of IBM, and its own commercial interests." Tom Robertson, General Manager for Interoperability and Standards, Microsoft |
TOM ROBERTSON: Because they're used in a sense of tools to address interoperability issues that are identified. This is really a framework for thinking about how we and others address interoperability challenges on a day-to-day basis. You would use one or more tools in a particular situation, and actually, to address a particular situation, you could foresee different vendors using different tools to address the same issue, because they would think that's their separate paths towards a solution that's most appropriate for the marketplace, or that would be more attractive to customers. That kind of competition between approaches is, I think at the end of the day, very healthy and good for customers.
Let me give you an example using the Open XML format, just to see how we've done this. Open XML is, I think, interesting because it reflects the use of each one of the tools. First of all, we have built Open XML support into Office 2007. We also, as a general matter, built XML support into our product line. But by doing that, we've enabled interoperability scenarios to take place. In the collaboration area, we sponsored the development of translators between Open XML and ODF, and Open XML and UOF - the emerging Chinese XML-based format. And those are all open source projects, they're on SourceForge. The Open XML translator has been one of the most popular SourceForge projects since it began, coming up on a year ago. And the text document format translator has been done since January, the betas of the spreadsheet and presentation translators are already out there, and we would expect the final versions to be done by the end of this calendar year. And then the UOF translation work is in the process of spinning out.
"I think if you talk to any of those entities - Novell, Xandros, JBoss, SugarCRM - they would tell you that they're part of the open source community." Tom Robertson, General Manager for Interoperability and Standards, Microsoft |
Then lastly there's the standardization. We worked with many different interests to standardize Open XML in ECMA, and that process - the Technical Committee 45 process - has included big tech companies like Apple, Intel, Toshiba, Novell. It included power users of document formats like Barclay's Bank, BP, Statoil. It included government archival interests like the US Library of Congress and the British Library. At the end of the day, the draft specification moved from 2,000 pages to over 6,000 pages. Why? Because the participants wanted to make sure that it was fully specified, in as robust a way as possible. They voted happily - and we think, appropriately - in December, 20 to 1 in favor of standardizing or adopting this as an ECMA standard. Now, the only "out-lyer" trying to block standardization was IBM. Then they also voted 20 to 1 to pass this on for ratification to ISO, as is what happens with most ECMA standards. Again, the vote was 20 to 1 with one notable exception.
So Open XML is interesting because it's an example of where you really can use, and may want to use, all the four toolsets to promote interoperability in a particular technology space.
I've made my comment on this matter here:
http://www.betanews.com/...mong_Formats/1181922127
If OXML built on the ODF standard as a foundation rather than presented itself as an alternative, then perhaps we could go somewhere on this.
Since it creates an alternative proprietary route, we can't.
Hopefully ISO will not ratify OXML as a standard.
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|If the determination of a standard were left to the market, there would be no standard. Vendors have no incentive to produce products that work with competitor's products. Only when customers demand that vendors meet a standard will compliant products be produced.
A lot of buildings burned down before fire hoses and fire hydrants were standardized, and if there were more than one standard they would still be burning down.
If you look at products where the customers just take what the market offers all you see are islands of incompatibilty with plastic tabs that don't do anything but stop brand A from accepting brand B refills. You can call it busines as usual, customer-lock-in, or in some situations monopolistic anti-competitive behavior, but what it means is that you pay more than you would if there were a standard.
And please note I said a standard, singular. Multiple standards is an oxymoron.
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|It's about money. Those who have it and those who don't, but wish they did. Microsoft has lots of money and they want even more. Only players with deep pockets can change the way the game is played.
Free and freedom are nice words, but they only apply if you have money. IBM, Cisco and Google have lots of money so they are free to do as they like, they are real players in the game. We call this game capitalism. You may have wonderful ideas and great products, but until you get the money it means zip. So off you go to one of the players, hoping to find a source of money, so you can get into the game.
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|And so say Borg of Microsoft.
How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a light bulb?
None. They've declared dark a standard.
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|Wow, I'd really like to use my own "Z" standard for electrical outlets, and then tell everyone to start building their appliances to run on it! And this has been another episode of how "Microsoft doesn't get it." Thanks for tuning in!
For the counterargument, read Rob Weir:
The question we face today is whether we want to carry forward the mistakes of the past and the extensive and expensive logic required to maintain this inherently unstable duct tape and bailing wire Office format, or whether we move forward to an engineered format that takes into account the best practices in XML design, reuses existing international standards, and is built upon a framework of dependencies that ensures that the format is not hostage to a chain of technologies that can be manipulated by a single vendor for their sole commercial advantage.
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|Wow, I'd really like to use my own "Z" standard for electrical outlets, and then tell everyone to start building their appliances to run on it!
...and you could. If it was better, people might actually use it. If not, who cares?
Just another example of how Zaine doesn't get it.
Apparently, in your delusional world, choice and options are Bad Things™. Most of the rest of us like having a couple of options.
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|Ouch, the stupid, it burns!
...and you could. If it was better, people might actually use it. If not, who cares?
Ever heard of ANSI? ICEA? NTCIP? Your blathering ignorance on every issue is both amusing and tiring, my friend. And as usual, you never address the issue, but just spew your same old troll-bait.
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|And as usual, you never address the issue, but just spew your same old troll-bait.
Sorry. Should I instead take your methodology of simply cutting and pasting the testimony from the latest "experts"?
Or perhaps I should be "mature" like you and throw up some stupid childish little website?
Ever heard of ANSI? ICEA? NTCIP?
Gee. You mean the folks certifying standards? Where MS just voted to get ODF certified?
Nope, never heard of 'em.
Typical response I'd expect from you.
You claim I don't address the issue,. when your own response is nothing more than a childish troll. You throw out a few acronyms and insult the poster who doesn't agree with you.
Pure genius.
My kids are smarter than you, and *far* more mature. Not really a stretch for anyone, really.
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|Did I wake up in an alternative reality today???
"...Microsoft believes people make the final decision - not companies, not countries, and perhaps not really agencies.". After locking up the market for decades, can you feel the sizzle under MS' feet?
Funny how a little heat from people, government and agencies will do to giant bullies.
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|Granted MS has a firm grip on many "standards". Over a decade of market penetration has done wonders for making MS Office standard fare.
While it sucks they have locked everyone into using Word, etc.; It's a done deal. You can't un-ring a bell.
Big business isn't simply going to toss themselves under the bus, and convert to some half-baked new format tomorrow, to bail themselves out of lock-in. It doesn't work like that.
No big deal for Joe Sixpack to start using ODF. Huge deal for a company or state with millions, if not billions of existing documents in Word format to do so.
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|That's just it. As long as they don't migrate to the deeply flawed MS-OOXML format, they can convert all their .doc files to ODF with high accuracy. Businesses only get locked in if they start using MS-OOXML with all it's problems, coding mistakes, dependencies, and contradictions.
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|Ain't gonna happen. Nobody wants to convert anything.
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|Pheew! What happened to Christopher Lloyd and that bell.
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