Microsoft shaking down 'ignorant' govt agencies

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the article.

XML Standards Error

Just a note on the

Open XML

that you state MS Office 2007 and OpenOffice.org both use. There are actually two different standards, each claiming "openness". It's important to distinguish these two standards, as opponents to Microsoft will say that it's trying to confuse the issue of what an open standard is, whereas (as I understand it) MS will represent that they're genuinely trying to make their file formats interoperable with other systems.

See these two links for more details:

• OpenOffice.org's "OpenDocument"
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
• MS Office 2007's "Office Open XML"
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML

Desktop Linux - Novell sure, but IBM?

If you write more on open source desktop operating systems, I recommend including Canonical, rather than IBM. Canonical has a much larger share of the Linux desktop space through Ubuntu, the largest distribution. IBM is a commercial vendor, and doesn't really do desktop Linux as far as I'm aware.

Records

I find it interesting that public sector agencies are retaining MS due to public records requirements. Big companies can fall down, as we've seen in the auto and financial industry. Software companies are not immune to collapse.

In theory, open source standards should beat proprietary ones over the long term - given that no one owns them and software can be developed by anyone to read them later on.

Thanks again Chris, I look forward to reading more about this story as it progresses.

- Tim

Hi Chris,

I could be wrong, but it was my understanding the MS products - e.g. MS Office + MS Sharepoint - are currently incapable of helping organisations comply with the Public Records Act without the addition of extremely expensive proprietary 3rd party add-ons.

It is my understanding that open source alternatives to that Microsoft stack, e.g. OpenOffice combined with Alfresco or various other combinations of open standards compliant applications are, if anything, better at delivering PRA compliance.

If that's the case, then your assertion about organsations sticking with Microsoft products due to PRA compliance concerns is quite misleading. Either that, or those organisations using that as a justification are misinformed.

Cheers,

Dave

A point of clarification - your article is a bit confusing regarding the two "standards" for documents. Only one is open - the ODF (Open Document Format). The other, OOXML is Microsoft's more recent failed attempt at an open standard to compete with ODF (note the stupidity of introducing a "competing open standard").

MS Office 2007 uses a *non-compliant* variant of OOXML for DOCX, XLSX, etc. That's mostly because MS haven't been able to build a compliant version yet (because the OOXML standard is fundamentally broken).

OpenOffice and perhaps 10 other applications (e.g. KOffice, Lotus Symphony, Gnumeric, StarOffice, Abiword, Google Docs, etc.) offer practical interoperability via the more mature ODF standard.

Microsoft, having abandoned attempts to implement OOXML, have instead tried to offer ODF compatibility with the latest MS Office 2007 service pack, but have done so poorly. As a result, practical interoperability between MS Office 2007 with OpenOffice and other ODF-supporting applications is broken. OpenOffice's developers, on the other hand, have built in file *read* support for MS's proprietary DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, etc. files into OpenOffice, but only by reverse engineering those formats, and not because they've had any cooperation from Microsoft, or have benefited from OOXML.

In the last copuple of weeks a pan-Asian Open Source initiative has been announced, and the Italian Dept of statistics has reported on its use of open Source tools. Many more such reports & announcements are not mentioned here, this is just a quick sample....

http://www.osor.eu/news/it-statistics-institute-moving-to-open-source-in...
http://www.oss.asia/

To quote the Italian Government's Statistics Insitute, in the above article:

"The open source operating system is now the default OS for servers and Istat now also requires to have at least one open source application for every type of project. "That is not because we are strong open source advocates, but because of the embarrassingly poor performance of proprietary alternatives."

Open Source only succeeds if it works, not on how well it is marketed, unlike commercial alternatives, where marketing budgets are into $millions per year, none of which benefits the users, but is paid for by them.

@Rob

If only there was a roadmap for OpenOffice that you could find by googling for "openoffice" and "roadmap" ;)

@Rob

1)
Of course Microsoft try to protect their revenue, as does any corporation, their constitution and shareholders demand it. Companies are psychopaths by definition. Ethics and morals have nothing to do with companies. It's people and communities that value those things. We need to recognise their need for greed and resist it. The closer to a monopoly we allow them to become, the more they can extract monopoly rents (ie excess prices, just as we've seen in G2009).

From your and my perspective, we are New Zealanders, seeking protect and enhance our local quality of life, and to make our Government more effective. Microsoft is a foreign corporation. Revenue to them is a balance of payments deficit for us. I care not a jot about their bottom line. Their monopolistic super-profits are actively used to subvert the open standards we enjoy working with.

2)
The open source community won't develop for you. It develops for it's own needs. If you have needs that are similar to others who have chosen to create open software, then you will find something useful. If you have common base requirements, like many organisations, you will find much on offer, a wide range of support, and lots of people willing to be paid to help make it work for you, and have fun doing it.

Only when an open source piece of software is really good does it become successful and widely adopted. When the price is free, why use a second-best piece of software.

If you have some variations in your requirements, a commercial vendor may, or may not, choose to accommodate your requirements. It's at their discretion, and their pricing. No amount of wailing from you can influence their decision, unless you are a dangerously large percentage of their revenue. I've experience a vendor saying no to mods for the last 20 years, and there is nothing I can do about.

On the other hand, if you have open source, I can guarantee you can have your diverse requirements met. It's only a matter of how much of your money it takes to implement them, and that only depends on how big a variation you want.

If you have way out requirements or directions, you won't find much open source to suit your needs. But then again, you won't find much commercial either, and you'll pay an awful lot for it, both up front and ongoing. You can choose to spend your fortune on foreign closed source, or local developers, it's your choice. One would hope if you're going to a lot of trouble to do way out stuff that you're generating significant added value from it's deliverables, like Weta Workshop for example.

So, I hope you'll re-evaluate open source suitability to your requirements by having your technical people do some proper research, your accountants some proper costings, your archivists some proper comparisons, your HR department do some proper seeking of skills, your actuaries do some proper risk analysis, and your senior management do some proper strategic thinking.

David.

@Rob

1)
Of course Microsoft try to protect their revenue, as does any corporation, their constitution and shareholders demand it. Companies are psychopaths by definition. Ethics and morals have nothing to do with companies. It's people and communities that value those things. We need to recognise their need for greed and resist it. The closer to a monopoly we allow them to become, the more they can extract monopoly rents (ie excess prices, just as we've seen in G2009).

From your and my perspective, we are New Zealanders, seeking protect and enhance our local quality of life, and to make our Government more effective. Microsoft is a foreign corporation. Revenue to them is a balance of payments deficit for us. I care not a jot about their bottom line. Their monopolistic super-profits are actively used to subvert the open standards we enjoy working with.

2)
The open source community won't develop for you. It develops for it's own needs. If you have needs that are similar to others who have chosen to create open software, then you will find something useful. If you have common base requirements, like many organisations, you will find much on offer, a wide range of support, and lots of people willing to be paid to help make it work for you, and have fun doing it.

Only when an open source piece of software is really good does it become successful and widely adopted. When the price is free, why use a second-best piece of software.

If you have some variations in your requirements, a commercial vendor may, or may not, choose to accommodate your requirements. It's at their discretion, and their pricing. No amount of wailing from you can influence their decision, unless you are a dangerously large percentage of their revenue. I've experience a vendor saying no to mods for the last 20 years, and there is nothing I can do about.

On the other hand, if you have open source, I can guarantee you can have your diverse requirements met. It's only a matter of how much of your money it takes to implement them, and that only depends on how big a variation you want.

If you have way out requirements or directions, you won't find much open source to suit your needs. But then again, you won't find much commercial either, and you'll pay an awful lot for it, both up front and ongoing. You can choose to spend your fortune on foreign closed source, or local developers, it's your choice. One would hope if you're going to a lot of trouble to do way out stuff that you're generating significant added value from it's deliverables, like Weta Workshop for example.

So, I hope you'll re-evaluate open source suitability to your requirements by having your technical people do some proper research, your accountants some proper costings, your archivists some proper comparisons, your HR department do some proper seeking of skills, your actuaries do some proper risk analysis, and your senior management do some proper strategic thinking.

David.

@Rob

1)
Of course Microsoft try to protect their revenue, as does any corporation, their constitution and shareholders demand it. Companies are psychopaths by definition. Ethics and morals have nothing to do with companies. It's people and communities that value those things. We need to recognise their need for greed and resist it. The closer to a monopoly we allow them to become, the more they can extract monopoly rents (ie excess prices, just as we've seen in G2009).

From your and my perspective, we are New Zealanders, seeking protect and enhance our local quality of life, and to make our Government more effective. Microsoft is a foreign corporation. Revenue to them is a balance of payments deficit for us. I care not a jot about their bottom line. Their monopolistic super-profits are actively used to subvert the open standards we enjoy working with.

2)
The open source community won't develop for you. It develops for it's own needs. If you have needs that are similar to others who have chosen to create open software, then you will find something useful. If you have common base requirements, like many organisations, you will find much on offer, a wide range of support, and lots of people willing to be paid to help make it work for you, and have fun doing it.

Only when an open source piece of software is really good does it become successful and widely adopted. When the price is free, why use a second-best piece of software.

If you have some variations in your requirements, a commercial vendor may, or may not, choose to accommodate your requirements. It's at their discretion, and their pricing. No amount of wailing from you can influence their decision, unless you are a dangerously large percentage of their revenue. I've experience a vendor saying no to mods for the last 20 years, and there is nothing I can do about.

On the other hand, if you have open source, I can guarantee you can have your diverse requirements met. It's only a matter of how much of your money it takes to implement them, and that only depends on how big a variation you want.

If you have way out requirements or directions, you won't find much open source to suit your needs. But then again, you won't find much commercial either, and you'll pay an awful lot for it, both up front and ongoing. You can choose to spend your fortune on foreign closed source, or local developers, it's your choice. One would hope if you're going to a lot of trouble to do way out stuff that you're generating significant added value from it's deliverables, like Weta Workshop for example.

So, I hope you'll re-evaluate open source suitability to your requirements by having your technical people do some proper research, your accountants some proper costings, your archivists some proper comparisons, your HR department do some proper seeking of skills, your actuaries do some proper risk analysis, and your senior management do some proper strategic thinking.

David.