Comments on: simon phipps [and hamish newlands]

By: Michael Neel

Michael Neel — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 03:03:18 +0000

Simon: http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/ Scroll down the page and read: "Microsoft (Funding, Architectural & Technical Guidance and Project co-coordination)" "This project is developed and released under a very liberal BSD-like license" If MS bundled that with MO Office I sure they would be sued for "unfair practices".

By: Simon Phipps

Simon Phipps — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 07:22:51 +0000

Hey Michael Neel — MS Office only opens ODF files if you install the plug-in Sun wrote to make it do so. Microsoft has not written a plug-in to make OpenOffice.org read OOXML files. Who exactly are you accusing of not getting with the “open” programme again?

By: Dave Armstrong

Dave Armstrong — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:30:28 +0000

Some of you are very close to the core energy of what Microsoft is all about. If you embrace it you will see that Microsoft software runs the world. Microsoft gives developers the tools to be creative. Microsoft rules. IBM tried and failed. Borland flops. And so on. Get with the program or get off the bus. If you were an IT director would you want to go with the leader or head off into the woods with your own mission of whatever. We have a wheel. It turns on every office and home PC in the world — except for the weird and wacky who speak loud and are being left behind. Don’t reinvent it. Learn to use it. Or get left behind. Or get left behind … (Safety in numbers!)

By: Simon Phipps

Simon Phipps — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:01:27 +0000

Maybe you haven’t been asking the right questions, James. I recognise Microsoft’s strengths at the same time as I assert their business models are often predicated on asymptotically approaching evil in the mindset of an underdog confronting a bully.

By: Michael Neel

Michael Neel — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:23:27 +0000

Interesting reads. I guess it depends on your viewpoint. If you are waiting for a free version of Office and an Service Pack on XP that turns it into Vista, Microsoft is very closed.
If your a developer, using a free version of Visual Studio, working with the free .Net Framework and using Microsoft Open Sourced projects like Asp.Net Ajax and supporting SilverLight on Windows, Mac and Linux, Microsoft is already pretty open.
Talk of the nobility of software is nice and all, but at the end of the day we have companies driven by profits. If Microsoft can make more money be keeping Office closed it will. Sun, if it wants to compete with Office, needs to make Open Office a real competitor and not just the alternative. MS Office supports loading and saving Open Office formats — Open Office (and Sun) should do the same and stop trying to force the issue in lawsuits and standards documents. Sun also needs to look at Exchange, the real MS killer app — I’ve never worked for or contracted to a company that used something other than Exchange.
On the flip side, if MS did open source Office, they would probably be sued for that as well. They just lost in the EU for including Media Player with Vista — so now it’s wrong for an OS to be able to play an MP3 out of the box.

By: B.L Ochman

B.L Ochman — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 23:39:27 +0000

Let’s put it this way: I sold my Microsoft stock when Vista came out and I spent an afternoon at J&R’s computer department, watching people return PCs because they hated Vista and immediately go to buy a Mac in the adjacent department.
You haven’t said what you think Microsoft should do next. I would love to know how you see the company going forward.

By: James Governor

James Governor — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:27:24 +0000

Its not the future that is open source. Its the present. ALL successful software companies now use open source methods in their ecosystems. Microsoft is no exception.
I was amazed you said Simon said some nice things about Microsoft. I don’t believe I have encountered that side of Mr Phipps.
Never mind polishing a turd. Success comes when you allow your product babies to become children, and then young adults that eat their parents. R/3 ate R/2. SAP won. the rest is history.
Software companies are shackled by success.

By: Hamish

Hamish — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:50:17 +0000

Well, the real issue is exactly the one that the blue monster addresses. “Change the world or go home.“
Now, the two really big cash cows in MS are Windows and Office. The rest is big money, but not in this context, the margins and revenue mainly come from those two areas.
Only, problem is that Office has been feature complete from many people’s perspective since version 2000, and those who require the high end functions in later versions are really not that huge of a market. (Assertion, not fact, but it feels right to me, and I am SAP ERP consultant, so I think I have some feel for what corporations are doing in this area.) So, as software effectively does not wear out, you will keep using the old versions, certainly I do at home.
For Windows the situation is more complex, because the PC comes with the operating system installed, and you do not generally change it. But interesting enough, the latest version, Vista, has been a late, bloated and unpopular failure, to the extent that PC vendors are seeking to allow downgrades to XP, which is unprecedented. Add to that the recent monopoly judgements in Europe, and some of the suggested remedies, and you have some serious thinking to do about how to manage the breakdown of the network effect that keeps it all together.
Think of three things.
Open document formats are now being approved by ISO, allowing interoperability of document formats at last.
IBM is (re) entering the Office Suite market, with a version of Open Office. That says that they think it is a legitimate choice, and the suits will sit up and ask, “why am I paying hundreds of dollars if free is apparently good enough?“
Finally, if the EU continues on its way, MS will have God’s own job to extend the footprint to do more interesting things. Design meetings with an IP lawyer at the table, anyone?
But changing the world has already been done in these areas, arguably, what is happening now is just turd polishing. (Someone once said of six sigma and total quality, “I don’t care how lovingly you polish it, a turd is still a turd.)
Truly disruptive innovation does change the world, but I am not sure where MS is trying that these days. That’s not to say that the company is not clever, motivated, hard-working or whatever, but the goals have not changed significantly for some time.