Donnerstag Dezember 01, 2005

"IBM joins Sun in encouraging Massachusetts to stick to its guns"
"IBM Corp has joined Sun Microsystems Inc in recommending that the State of Massachusetts use caution in evaluating Microsoft Corp's submission of the Office Open XML Formats to the Ecma International standards body."
The full article can be found here.
( Dez 01 2005, 05:52:02 PM CET ) Permalink

Microsoft apparently not well informed
I just read this German article in which Microsoft's German CTO Walter Seemayer is quoted. Apparently Microsoft is not well informed about the capabilities of the OASIS standard OpenDocument format.

According to the article Walter Seemayer claims that the OpenDocument format had been optimized for OpenOffice.org and StarOffice, that OpenDocument would not support features like Microsoft's PivotTables, and that Microsoft's Custom Schema technology could not be implemented based on the OpenDocument format.

First, in contrast to Microsoft's file formats, the OpenDocument file format has been developed to be application independent incorporating and leveraging existing open standards like HTML, SVG, Dublin Core, etc. wherever possible. The proof that OpenDocument did a good job with respect to application independence is the fact that several applications including IBM Workplace, KOffice and Textmaker are already successfully implementing the standard.

On the other hand, Microsoft claims backward compatibility with old Microsoft Office versions and old file formats as the key goal for the development of their XML file format. Thus, from my point of view, by saying this, Microsoft publicly and openly admits that their file formats are not being designed to be vendor and application independent and thus should not used as the basis of an open standard.

I personally would have to check with our engineers, but since OpenOffice.org and StarOffice implement a lot of Microsoft's PivotTable functionality via the DataPilot tool, I doubt that the PivotTable information cannot be captured in the OpenDocument format. At the very least, it could be easily added or integrated via the open OASIS TC definition process, just like KOffice got their requirements addressed as well.

Microsoft's Custom Schemas are just an application feature and not a file format feature from my point of view. Topic 1.5 ("Document Processing and Conformance") of the OpenDocument specification explicitly talks about adding information to the file format. And again, as part of the open OASIS specification process, the OpenDocument format can and will evolve based on input from companies who are interested in defining an open standard.
( Dez 01 2005, 05:47:43 PM CET ) Permalink Kommentare [1]

Power Pricing, Customer Lifetime Value, Return on Customer, ...
I just returned from a one-week vacation and a two-day trip to the World Marketing & Sales Forum. Thus, you should see more blog entries again.

My wife and I spent some very nice days on the beautiful German island Rügen. The weather was very good and sunny, even though it was already November. On one day we visited the cute little island Hiddensee and on another day we went to Arkona. Stay tuned for some pictures!

Our hotel was also very nice. From our balcony we could see the beach of the Baltic see, and at night we could hear the ocean.

The last two days were fun as well. At the World Marketing & Sales Forum by HSM I got the chance to listen to Philip Kotler, Terry Jones, Anders Knutsen, Hermann Simon and Martha Rogers. It was a great event for getting new ideas and networking. IESE, one of Europe's top business school was one of the event sponsors.

I especially liked the pricing session by "Power Pricing" co-author Hermann Simon (BTW, I really like the book) and the "Return on Customer" session by Martha Rogers. Kotler was fun to listen to, but from my point of view the session did not include too many news. Terry Jones' talk was the most fun. It was more a live movie than a slide presentation. Terry Jones' talk about online marketing and the growing importance of online media/technologies made me really feel good about the company I'm working for.
( Dez 01 2005, 05:47:21 PM CET ) Permalink