Open Dialogue: How Microsoft and Massachusetts Defused a Political Battle Over ODF
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More than 300 e-mails, obtained under Massachusetts public records laws, show Microsoft lobbied for legislation that could have stripped the state's IT unit of much of its decision-making power. But it backed off and compromised with the state's CIO on plug-in support for the Open Document Format in Office.
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Was the Novell/Microsoft deal a worthwhile well-meaning effort between renegade open-source geeks at Microsoft and geeks at Novell that got derailed by salespeople and management, after which it was turned into a nightmare deal with the devil?  I raise this question because I know someone with ties to people at both Microsoft and Novell.  He has a credible story to tell about what really happened, and how much it differs from what we now know about the Novell/Microsoft deal.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get him to write up the history - yet.  While I continue to pester him, here's the short version, third hand.
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The New York Times revealed Saturday that Google was the unidentified party mentioned in a US Dept. of Justice status report last March as having lodged a "middleware-related complaint" against Microsoft.  In addition, a memo by a key antitrust enforcement official that the Times also turned up, rejecting Google's arguments and advising states' prosecutors to reject them as well.
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(InfoWorld) - When Massachusetts' government decided to use Open Document Format (ODF) as the default document file format throughout its agencies, a key concern was that ODF would not allow the visually impaired to use assistive computer technologies. On Wednesday, IBM Corp. said it has helped solve that problem by developing technology that will allow applications based on ODF to better communicate with products used by the blind to access visual information on computer screens. Through Project Missouri, IBM developed application programming interfaces, (APIs) collectively called iAccessible2. These APIs will make it easy for visuals in applications based on ODF and other Web technologies to be interpreted by screen readers that reproduce that information verbally, IBM said. IBM spokesman Ari Fishkind said that in the past it has been hard for screen-reading technology to keep up with the advent of cutting-edge development and file formats such as ODF, AJAX (asynchronous Javascript and XML) and DHTML (dynamic hypertext markup language). The latter two technologies allow increasingly complex visuals to be rendered in Web browsers, and those are difficult to translate for screen readers, he said. iAccessible2 not only will help ODF communicate better with screen readers that assist blind computer users, but it will also allow charts, pictures and other visuals based on AJAX and DHTML to be discerned by the visually impaired through those readers. "It's like a universal decoder ring," he said of iAccessible2. The technology is based on interfaces IBM originally developed with Sun Microsystems Inc. to make programs on Java and Linux platforms accessible to the blind. IBM has donated its work in Project Missouri -- so named because Missouri is called the "Show Me" state -- to the Free Standards Group, a nonprofit group that promotes open-source software. That organization will work on the technology and maintain it as an open standard so anyone can use it, IBM said. Other companies working on the development of iAccessible2 include Sun, Oracle Corp. and SAP AG. Mozilla Corp. also intends to integrate iAccessible2 into its open-source Firefox Web browser, Fishkind added. ODF has been approved as an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and is currently in competition with Microsoft's Open XML file format to become the industry's default file format for documents. Open XML is the basis of Microsoft's proprietary Office 2007 productivity suite that also recently was approved by the ISO as a standard. Companies such as IBM, Sun and others are promoting the use of ODF against Microsoft's technology, while others will support both ODF and Open XML just to be on the safe side, in case both are widely adopted. The rivalry between ODF and Open XML heated up last year when Massachusetts put forth a proposal to change its default file format to ODF for all of its state agencies, which would mean they would have to stop using Microsoft Office. This eventually led Microsoft to submit Open XML as a standard as ODF was already going through that process. Increasingly, government agencies are moving their IT platforms to technologies that are considered standard throughout the industry, forgoing some technologies that are seen as proprietary.
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Regulators at the European Union have asked Microsoft for information on Microsoft lobbying on an ISO Open XML vote in September.
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Hot Swedish XML action Microsoft has been accused of rigging a vote on the ratification of Office Open XML (OOXML) as an international standard at a government body in Sweden.â¦
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There is a fascinating article on Groklaw called Searching for Openness in Microsoft's OOXML and Finding Contradictions. One of the most relevant comments in the article is "So, they plan to be the only one in the Linux world that can actually interoperate with Microsoft. How do you think they will achieve that? By sharing? On the contrary, they already market themselves as uniquely interoperable, which means they get to interoperate and you don't, unless you are their paying customer."  There is also the Novell comment, "Only Novell has Microsoftâs endorsement as its partner to drive Linux-Windows interoperability."
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Bills seeking to mandate the use of open document formats were introduced in various states this year. But heavy lobbying by Microsoft has helped to squelch or water down all of the proposals.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft's quest to have Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) as a global technology standard seems to have recovered from a setback it suffered last week as both sides of the Open XML-ODF debate shore up arguments as the final vote to approve Open XML nears. The executive committee for the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), which represents U.S. interests in the ISO, approved the draft specification of Open XML "with comments" on Thursday after a technical committee that advises it last week failed to earn the two-thirds majority it needed to reach the same decision. Predictably, Microsoft is counting this move as a victory, according to a blog entry by Doug Mahugh, a Microsoft technical evangelist. "They'll reach a decision within the executive board on this proposed position by mid-August, which allows plenty of time for subsequent discussion or another vote if needed before the final U.S. position is due on Sept. 2," he wrote. The ISO is scheduled to vote on the Open XML that day. In a press statement attributed to Tom Robertson, Microsoft's general manager of interoperability and standards, the company said the decision shows "positive momentum" behind ISO ratification of Open XML. "It reflects the importance of allowing users to choose the format that best meets their needs and the fact that innovation and evolution will take place over time," according to the statement. When the V1 committee could not come to an agreement over Open XML, it seemed that things would not bode well for an approval vote from the U.S. in the ISO. However, even if the U.S. comes down in favor of the spec, it still faces opposition from other countries that also get to vote, such as Italy and Portugal, which have complained about the approval process Microsoft used to rush Open XML through another international standards body, Ecma International, on its way to the ISO. In the meantime, those who favor Open XML, led by Microsoft, and those who have misgivings about the technology mostly due to their interest in the rival file format Open Document Format for XML (ODF), are getting in some final comments for their respective sides. ODF has already been approved by the ISO as an international standard. Ari Fishkind, an IBM spokesman, said there are still issues around some technical details of Open XML that did not get fixed in the fast-track process. Those include a glitch that makes spreadsheets in Open XML unable to calculate dates before 1900 and a bias toward the U.S. and other countries that adopt a Western way of thinking. "It is not geared toward an international community," he said. For its part, IBM hopes that before the vote there will be as much "correct information" provided to the national bodies that vote in the ISO so they can make "an informed decision," Fishkind said. Open XML's approval as a standard is considered key to helping Microsoft keep its 90-plus percent share among productivity software users worldwide. Some countries and U.S. states have either adopted or are eyeing plans to use only technologies considered to be open standards for use in their IT systems. Approval by the ISO in addition to the Ecma approval it already has would lend more weight to Open XML -- and thus Microsoft Office -- being a part of those systems. Some in the industry are taking a middle ground on the Open XML-ODF debate and promoting both by emphasizing the idea of choice. Melanie Wyne, executive director of the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC), which promotes neutral government procurement, standards, and public research and development policies for software, said her group is promoting the existence of both ODF and Open XML as ISO standards because having only one global standard for document formats is limiting to end-users. "Technology is a rapidly developing area, and if you standardize on one technology, you could wind up losing out on functionality or applications that may develop in the future," she said. ISC is run by CompTIA, a U.S.-based technology industry association, and has about 280 member companies and organizations. Microsoft is among them; however, IBM and Sun, the two biggest proponents of ODF, are not. Wyne said that the ISC does not support any kind of mandates by governments or public agencies about what kind of technology is run in their systems. Instead, the group believes the key focus should be interoperability between different kinds of technology. "Our feeling is there are a number of ways to getting to interoperability, and open standards is just one in a number of those ways," she said.
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The development monoculture around the OpenOffice suite has, critics charge, become one of the project's own worst enemies. Now that IBM is taking the field, can that be changed in time to fend off Microsoft Office hegemony?
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By SCHWARZ, Reuben  A PUBLIC row has broken out between Microsoft and the Education Ministry over the reason Microsoft Office was dropped from schools' Apple computers.
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I have no problem with Microsoft operating in a market environment. Given a choice, I am sure many of us would gladly pay for Windows and Office rather than use Linux and Open Office.
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There's money to be made in mediating others' software rivalries.
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A 1997 memo from the head of Microsoft Corp.'s Mac development group to then-CEO Bill Gates laid out the case for using the Mac version of Office as a bargaining tool against Apple.
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The software monolith extends an intellectual property plan to all.   Also: U.S. opposes the WTO's online gambling plan & hellip;.  Microsoft will offer a long awaited preview of its search-engine technology & hellip;. and more.
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(InfoWorld) - Google may be seeking a reopening of state and federal government antitrust action against Microsoft, but a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) official has recommended against it, newspaper reports indicated Sunday. Google alleged that Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system puts other search software companies at a disadvantage, making it difficult for users to employ non-Microsoft desktop-search software, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing lawyers familiar with the case. Microsoft's own desktop indexing system is almost impossible to turn off, Google claimed in a white paper sent to both the DOJ and states' attorneys general, thereby affecting a computer's performance when running non-Microsoft search index, the report said. Microsoft denied the accusations, saying that its own search indexing could be turned off, although with some difficulty, and that its program did not interfere with the operation of other search indexing software and therefore did not influence performance, according to the report. Despite Google's efforts to draw its rival into a protracted legal fight, the company's antitrust cries are falling on deaf ears, especially at the DOJ, which fought Microsoft over monopoly accusations in the late 1990s until a settlement in 2002, according to The New York Times, which also cited lawyers close to the case. Thomas O. Barnett, now the DOJ's top-ranking antitrust official, recommended in May that the DOJ and state attorneys general reject Google's complaint, the report said. Formerly employed by a law firm that represented Microsoft during the DOJ antitrust suit, Barnett did not work on the case before joining the DOJ, and recused himself from involvement in the DOJ's ongoing monitoring of Microsoft that is part of the 2002 settlement, the report said. However, some state prosecutors may take up the case with or without the DOJ, which is slated to be heard in Federal District Court in Washington later this month, it said.
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As a Washington journalist during the 90s, I made frequent treks to the Federal Election Commission to inspect cabinets full of campaign-finance reports to find out who was giving to whom.    Though some data were available through a proprietary online system, those $20-per-hour access fees added up...