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Alternative View of the Microsoft Monopoly
As the Microsoft anti-trust trial is set to resume, it is likely that Microsoft will face some form of legal action. The key is that the government has to prove that consumers have been harmed in some way. This is not so clear, and it's even been argued that Microsoft's dominance has even benefited end users by providing a stable marketplace for products to develop without software publishers having to commit needless resources to porting products to multiple platforms. However, these arguments have all focused on the direct economic benefits and losses that consumers have received from this situation. It is not economic losses that the public has suffered, but loss of choice.Microsoft's domination has limited the axes of competition to one variable, the ability to work with others on the creation of documents. It has not achieved this from a monopoly in operating systems but a monopoly in application file formats. With this understanding, it makes the charges of Microsoft abusing it's monopoly position in the browser market irrelevant. So it's clear what legal action should be taken by the government to create an open market in software. I come to these conclusion from my own personal experiences and that's a good place to start.
As I sit here composing this essay, I am surrounded by three computers and let me explain why. People purchase computers to perform certain using software applications, and I am no different, except that I may be a little more techno savvy than others. I have an Apple Macintosh Powerbook that I prefer to use for doing my writing work because it allows me to concentrate on my writing and not the computer. A fairly common claim about the Macintosh, and I am going to leave that at face value because it is my experience, and for me that's all that matters. I also have a machine that is running the increasingly popular open-source operating system Linux. I use this operating system because it the most stable and affordable operating system that meets my needs as a web publisher and programmer. Lastly, this brings me to my machine running Windows95. I often receive files from others that I have to read, comment and edit. And more times than not, they are Microsoft Office documents. The best way and until recently the only way to read Office97 documents is using Microsoft Office on Windows. Given my choice and convenience, I use other easier, more stable alternatives for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations when I know that I am the only one who will be reading them. Unfortunately, most of the time that is not the case. So I possess what I consider this extra machine, because I have to do something as basic commenting on a memo. This is the sole reason I continue to have in my possession a Windows machine. Finally, the other major task that I do is web surfing, and surprisingly, I find all three platforms acceptable for that task. So I in effect have no choice but to run Office97, and hence Windows95 and to understand why this is, one has to understand the transformation that occurred in the last 10 years in how we create, manipulate and exchange information. Since the creation of movable type and the printing press nearly five centuries ago, we have not fundamentally changed the way that we work with information. Gutenberg triggered a revolution by enabling the mass production and distribution of information. A more recent minor leap occurred with photocopying which enabled mass publication without the necessity of typesetting. Both these technological leaps involved improving the way we work with the underlying medium of information, which is paper, not words. Paper enabled distribution of ideas and its hegemony in every stage of information creation has been unchallenged until now.
The major application of computers is word processing. Word processing is not about efficiency, but about enabling non-specialists the ability to create finished documents. Word processing is more correctly called document processing.
Historically when someone created information in the form of a memo, a play or an accounting log, she would use pen and paper and create in long hand. This paper would then be handed to a secretary who would transform this into a distributable form by typing it out. A secretary was used because she could reliably and quickly do this. Secretaries were in effect specialists in using a typewriter. Not much different from a concert pianist in the precision and flawlessness required. Word processing changed that, because the person running the keyboard no longer had to execute flawlessly. The computer tolerated the introduction of errors by delaying the final output. Word processors made it safe for idea creators to create not only ideas, but documents as well. All without the assistance of secretaries and delivered the final kiss of death to the typing pool. This ability to manipulate the final product is what human interface specialists call direct manipulation. The actual process may not have become more efficient -- I am a slower typist than most, but it enabled it to be more direct. But the target has always the same, a well formatted document on paper.
To further emphasize how important paper was in our conception of documents, the importance of the Graphical User Interface or GUI was not ease of use, but in the fact that the computer screen was true to its eventual appearance on paper. WYSIWYG -- "What You See is What You Get" should have really been called WYSIWYGOP, "What You See is What You Get On Paper." It was this fidelity in desktop publishing that gave the Macintosh its foothold into the prepress business.
Word processors may have initially simplified the creation of documents, but it did not immediately change the method of distribution and the revision of documents. These processes still took place on paper. A typical scenario was you would use the computer to create a manual, print out a draft and make photocopies for distribution. Others would then make comments and edits on these copies and return them to you. At which point you would make these changes on the computer. An especially comedic situation was that someone would type a letter using a word processor, printed it out, send it using a fax machine and once it was received on the other end, retype it into another computer. This situation did not change until the advent of cheap removable media and computer data networks.
The edit and revision process slowly transformed when people started passing floppy disks around, and later through the use of e-mail. In both cases, the actual data file was being exchanged and now editors and reviewers also engaged in direct manipulation. Data networks accelerated this sharing of information and finally intruded into publishing. No longer was it necessary for one to actually print out a document if one didn't want to. Once display technologies improve to match the resolution of paper, paper's hegemony will end except for long term archival purposes.
Paper has been replaced by the computer data file, but more specifically the Microsoft Office document. Word for word processing, Excel for spreadsheets and Powerpoint for presentations. This is the paper of our new age. When computers were used as instruments of creation and publishing, it was less important what program was used as long as the final product was on paper. But today the digital file serves this purpose. It would be ridiculous if you had to buy paper that required you to use a special pen to write on it, but that is exactly what happens today.
How Microsoft became the new paper standard is akin to the random events that lead to VHS becoming the standard for VCRs. One who has gets, gets and gets some more. Microsoft's initial aggressive marketing, bundling and discounting of its Office Suite led to a clear dominant position. This path dependency lead to dominance. Microsoft did in fact earn its riches through old fashion solid marketing, and has benefited from the spoils.
Today in the U.S., you cannot be an effective part of the information economy if you are unable to read a Microsoft Office document. It is for this reason, that when people buy computers for home, they buy what they have at the office. One has to have the ability to manipulate and read the documents they create and receive at work. Steve Jobs realized Apple would not have a chance if it a parity version of Office did not exist for the Macintosh. The importance of this commitment is under appreciated with respect to Apple's resurrection.
To understand how important file formats are, let's take a look at where another file format has emerged and not fallen to Microsoft and why -- the World Wide Web. Earlier I mentioned that I use all three of my computers almost equally well to surf the internet. The reason is that each of these machines has browsers which able to render and display web documents that are in a format known as the Hyper Text Markup Language or HTML. The conventional wisdom is that HTML is inter-operable because it is a public standard. This is only half of the truth. During the great browser war of the early 90s both Netscape and Microsoft tried to co-opt HTML by creating proprietary extensions. This resulted in a lot of web pages which would not display properly because they contained extensions which the competitor's browsers could not interpret correctly. The critical point is that the document was not displayed properly as opposed to not being displayed at all. In most cases, the relevant information is available to the reader. Compare this to the case where one receives a Word97 document by e-mail and does not have Word97; one is simply out of luck.
This information availability is a result of a quirk in the way the HTML language is specified and defined. In HTML, directives to the browsers in how to display a piece of text are sent in instructions contained in angle brackets. For example "" tells the browser to display all text following in bold until an off directive is encountered in the form of . These directives are known as "tags." What is brilliant is that if a browser encounters a tag that it does not understand, it is instructed to ignore that tag and continue to display the text as it has been. So when Netscape introduced a new tag that Microsoft's Internet Explorer did not understand, it did its best to display the remaining HTML. So the page was defective, not inoperable. This also means that HTML is by definition un-cooptable. Anyone can introduce a new tag into their web documents and this will not prevent others from reading the document, only the likelihood of them viewing it properly. HTML is unique in that it is mostly forward compatible as far as relevant data is concerned. The presence of standards is not sufficient to prevent bad behavior from companies, but a standard that cannot lock others out is necessary for a competitive marketplace. HTML can be broken but not crippled. A side point is that HTML was specified in ASCII which is a lowest common denominator encoding format open to all.
So it is clear that there can and will be real competition and choices in browsers, the same cannot be said for applications that can read Office documents. If I have another word processor I cannot generally view a document in the latest Word format. This even applies if I have an older version of Word. To work with the majority I am forced to upgrade or change. To see how critical the file format issue, let's look at some other markets where Microsoft does not dominate. Let's start with the aforementioned browser market which is very healthy relative to the office applications market. It supports two major players and many niche players successfully. Recently Microsoft became the market leader in the browser market, but it does not own the market in the same way it owns the office productivity market. It no more owns the browser market than the Republicans currently own Congress. If you look at the server market which makes up the infrastructure of the internet. For web servers, Linux and Apache are the market leaders, yet Microsoft and Netscape still have thriving businesses in this segment. This is the case because what is exchanged between computers is HTML. It doesn't matter who serves it up. The same applies to the back end database market, most data returned and stored in databases is ASCII and there is little interchange between them. Because of this Oracle, IBM and Microsoft and a school of smaller competitors are fighting it out in this market giving consumers a choice.
Lastly, let's look at the segment where Linux has risen to great popularity, the market niche of programmers and system administrators. These people tend to work independently and do not need to create documents in Microsoft Office and hence have no need to have a Windows machine. Now this is not to say that programmers and systems administrators do not use Windows, there are those who do. But most choose a system for other reasons such as stability, cost or scalability. Document compatibility is not an issue. At a major company I know, most of the programmers prefer using an operating system known as Unix, but they still have two machines at their desks. A Unix machine for doing their primary job, and a Windows machine to read and send documents to people outside of the programming community.
In every other segment, Microsoft does not dominate the market because in every other segment, the medium of interoperability is different. Web servers are a fragmented market, mail servers are a fragmented market, web browsers are a fragmented market and databases are a fragmented market. People have choices to perform these functions using alternatives which emphasizes the features that are important to them be it stability, ease of use, cost of ownership, supportability or whatever. However because the primary task of most computer users is document creation, people purchase Windows to work with others because they must run Office.
If this insight is correct, what can the government do to restore competitiveness to the software market? I believe there is a less draconian step than those being bandied around. The first step requires Microsoft to open up their document formats in sufficient detail such that others can create applications which can read Office documents flawlessly. Second, require Microsoft to publish all changes in these file formats six months in advance of any new release to allow competitors to update their products to read and write these new formats. The terms of this information can either be gratis or a reasonable licensing agreement. Third, Justice should oversee Microsoft's pricing practices, if there is one thing to be learned from what happened to internet browsers is that Microsoft is willing to engage in predatory pricing to drive out competitors. Even with open formats, very few organizations have as much cash on hand as Microsoft and are unlikely to last long in a price war. In an information economy, the medium of exchange is too important to be allowed to be controlled by one company, and until something web centralized is created, most information will be created and exchanged in Microsoft Office. The standard arguments to this proposal are the following. First, HTML is becoming the standard and that the marketplace will take over. This is faulty in that HTML is insufficient to accurately render paper documents, and the new XML standard is more concerned with data representation than with presentation. Others have pointed to Adobe's PDF or Portable Document Format to handle rendering, but it is a publishing format, not a creation format and definitely not an editing format.
Others counter that there exist conversion programs which allow you to use any program you choose. Unfortunately, these are usually reverse engineered solutions that are incomplete. Often the data is manipulated because the end product does not support a certain feature. Additionally the time delay to produce the converter after the introduction of a new format by Microsoft means that most people will not wait and deal with the inconvenience as their vendor upgrades their product. Lastly, there is the argument that Microsoft Office is available on the Macintosh, but the response is so laughably obvious in who provides that. History has also shown that Office for the Macintosh is usually not a parity version, that its release is behind that of the Windows version and generally available only at a higher cost than the Windows version. It also begs the question of conflict of interest for Microsoft to jeopardize its other businesses. A cynical view is that Microsoft's production of Office for Macintosh is more an effort to hold off anti-trust action than a sincere effort to grow a market.
Non-technological arguments include that the government has no right in defining the features and formats that are the basis for competition and innovation. In response, the government has historically imposed guidelines and standards when interchange is involved. This is no different from the government defining what gauge railroad tracks. And today, there is no other dominant form of interchange that is more unregulated than the Microsoft data formats.
This is a less drastic solution than forcing Microsoft to give up its source code or breaking Microsoft into applications and operating systems divisions. The latter does no good anyway, if the premise that interoperability of documents is the most important driver of computer choice. This will only result in two new monopolies at two new levels, especially if the applications division writes Office only for Windows.
So this proposal addresses market concerns, and shifts the market emphasis away from file formats which lock users, to other areas which are more beneficial to users. Computers are rightly disparaged for being too unreliable and too hard to use. Unfortunately, there are products which address these issues, but for most people are not acceptable because they need to be able to work with others at the document level. Hence the choice is either own multiple computers, or accept what Microsoft gives us. Most individuals and companies do not have the financial resources or time to do the former, so the majority accept the latter -- even if it means tolerating that stupid paper clip. The personal computer market has often been compared to the VCR war between VHS and Beta. But the focus of the analogy has been faulty, the correct format comparison is not between Macintosh and DOS/Windows, but in Office applications vs. everyone else. If I go to a consumer electronics store, I have a choice in VCRs which can all play VHS. Unfortunately, I do not have the same choice when "playing" Office documents. We live in an economy driven by the creation and exchange of information, and for any one company to own the format of the dominant format of interchange forces us to accept whatever that one company gives us. Doesn't seem like much choice to me.
On a personal note... (Score:1)
Very well written essay. I particularly agree with the part about people using office document formats as if they were generic, standardized formats.
For instance, I was recently asking a couple ISPs in our area for price quotes on co-location. Sure enough, one of them sent me a word document, and I sent it right back. This isn't the first time people have somehow expected me to automatically have windows or MacOS and Office on my computer.
Personally I never accept email attachments in word format. Whenever I receive a Word document I immediately sent it right back to them and ask that they send it in a standard format, even if I do have access to office where I am at at that time (and of course, they usually end up saying something like "Ok, I saved it as a '.TXT' file, does that work?). I hope buisnesspeople who do this feel embarrassed, and I hope people will eventually get the idea that the world doesn't run on windows or office.
Missed A Point, I Think (Score:1)
got to thinking. I came to the conclusion that his solutions will
not have the desired effect: that of freeing the computing industry
from an unhealthy dominance by one particular manufacturer.
Let us say, for the sake of the argument, that Microsoft is forced to
publish the specifications for its office productivity tools in
advance. What's to prevent them from specifying something be
embedded in the file format that is Ms-Windows specific, for
example?
I suggest that it would be unwise to underestimate Microsoft's
determination to have and hold dominance in the computer industry.
If you give them even a teeny, tiny hole they will exploit it to the
utmost.
History is our teacher.
All one need do is look at the example of what happened with the
U.S. Government's requirement that all operating systems be POSIX
compliant. Oh yes, Microsoft Windows NT is "POSIX compliant" all
right. Problem is: every last Microsoft application, and most all of
the third-party applications, run only under the Win32 API rather
than the POSIX API. But a little loophole in the Federal
guidelines--no requirement that the POSIX API actually be *used*,
let MS push their proprietary solutions into Government
facilities anyway.
Where Microsoft is concerned, one can *never* be too careful!
What about this? Has anyone tried it? (Score:1)
Re:On a personal note... (Score:1)
I agree people generally shouldn't mail around application specific files unless they have agreement from the recipient, but please, don't spout this bullshit.
There are numerous 3'rd party converters, viewers for free on the web (admittedly for Wintel platforms only), and all the apps can save in dozens of formats.
Just because an author is inconsiderate enough to ignore what tools the reader might have (or not have) access to, doesn't mean that the app is crap. Hell, you could just as easily send me a LaTex or postscript file as an attachment that I can't read (on a PC) either.
Re:XML is not a silver bullet (Score:1)
ANd yes, XML is getting a bad name because of Office2000. The point is that the DOJ could make MS use a CERTAIN set of standard DTDs for their documents.... kinda like saying they could only use OPEN standards like HTML, maybe one for spreadsheets (for excel), etc.
So yes, you CAN embrace and extend XML, just like HTML, but the DOJ could order them NOT to do that.
But XML is very, very cool.... I just wish I could convey to you in this little space how easy it makes web development. (see also scripting.com [scripting.com]
Re:AC's and their love of XML (Score:1)
Sure, its "just a way to organize data", but then so is a database, or this web page.
XML is an open standard which defines the rules and syntax of a set of data (the DTD), and an interchange medium (a well formed document).
To quote:
The scenario you describe is exactly the kind of situation that XML (and it's parent SGML) were designed to address.
Try getting a clue first: http://www.xml.org/ [xml.org]
Windows 95/Office 95 started it... (Score:1)
There was some talk back then that MS hadn't given the full APIs to other companies, but I don't know if that is true (I would believe it, though). I do know that Lotus, etc. didn't have Windows 95 ready versions out soon enough, and MS took advantage of that lapse in releases.
I think that [competition in the app space bullied by Windows 95] is a better focus for the anti-trust trial than the browser, and I agree that document format is a problem (force people to upgrade to Office97 for compatibiltiy...).
Re:Good point (Score:1)
I'm no fan of Microsoft (I run Linux and SunOS at home, and I'm looking into getting NetBSD/Alpha and IRIX systems, just for the heck of it) but to claim that Microsoft is holding your data hostage against your will is ridiculous.
Re:RTF Anyone? (Score:1)
Geoff Moore calls this "open proprietary system" (Score:1)
One of the saddest things in the high-tech (particular software) community is that there are very few people apart from Microsofties who understand the power of this concept.
And voila, you have a very defensible product, i.e. high barriers to entry for competitors and even higher barriers to exit for existing customers. And BTW, for those of us who are trying to build high-tech companies with high valuations (don't try to talk to a VC if this isn't your highest priority), it is an excellent road to succeed. Which makes it so sad ...
Where this becomes problematic, of course, is when you have reached the size and macroeconomic importance of Microsoft. And if one talks about breaking this monopoly apart (note that there are very few outcomes, if you use this approach, that do not end in a monopoly of some sort for your product at least in some market segments), one needs to take away a critical mass of the fundaments of this defensible position, which are proprietary core (thus the discussion about opening up file formats) and the lack of competition for the same open interfaces that are being used to "tie in" stuff. APIs are a big part of this but not the only ones. And the interface part that, sadly, sadly, is commonly ignored. No one needs the Windows source code to compete against it, only a guarantee that they aren't being chased to death following monthly API changes. (In fact, if you decided to build a Windows competitor, would you start with the Windows source code? Or would you really want to build a Word competitor from the Word file format if you could avoid it?)
To finish the soap box: the tie-in is more valuable and anti-competitive than anything else, create competition there first: freeze the APIs, require that they be documented completely (expensive I know) so other people's work does not reinforce the monopoly. And then the file format is (almost) irrelevant ...
XML is great for word processing (Score:2)
But you're not allowed to use them! (Score:2)
2.1 b. In addition, for the MSDN Library, this EULA grants you, as an individual, a personal, nonexclusive license to make and use an unlimited number of copies of any documentary material ("Documentation"), provided that such copies shall be used only for personal purposes and are not to be republished or distributed (either in hard copy or electronic form) beyond the user's premises and with the following exception: You may use Documentation identified in the MSDN Library as the file format specification for Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, and/or Microsoft PowerPoint ("File Format Documentation") solely in connection with your development of software product(s) that operate in conjunction with Windows or Windows NT that are not general-purpose word-processing, spreadsheet, or database management software products or an integrated work or product suite whose components include one or more general-purpose word-processing, spreadsheet, or database management software products. Note: A product that includes limited word-processing, spreadsheet, or database components along with other components that provide significant and primary value, such as an accounting product with limited spreadsheet capability, is not considered to be a "general-purpose" product.
This is really about Open Standards (Score:3)
Every computer company, whether hardware vendor or software vendor, plays the "customer lock-in" game. The object is to foster customer dependence on technology that only one company can deliver, and then take the customers to the proverbial cleaners because the customer has no alternatives.
Open standards for computer networking protocols, and for file formats, serve to mitigate or prevent customer lock-in, and this is why more open standards are a good thing, rather than a bad thing. Unfortunately, it appears that this seemingly obvious truth is lost on the majority of Information Systems (IS) professionals in the business world.
Open standards of this type are the central message of the Internet. The Internet Engineering Task Force [ietf.org] (IETF) requires demonstrated "interoperability", i.e. disparate computers and software successfully communicating, as the primary requirement for any standard specification to be advanced in their process.
A ScenarioImagine this scenario: you're the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of a major corporation. You, in order to promote the efficient flow of information through the company, issue an edict to the effect that Microsoft Word (or WordPerfect, or whatever) shall be the standard software package for producing and exchanging documents throughout the company.
While this should work fine provided that there is a version of that software for every computer in your enterprise - an iffy proposition these days; there are two unhappy outcomes from this kind of "standard":
It is very difficult for a single software package to fully meet the needs and working styles of every person or group in a medium or large company, aside from the issue of finding a version of that single software for every computer your enterprise owns & operates.
Some people and departments will be very unhappy with your order, and will likely defy it, by using a different and probably incompatible software package that better fits their department's business needs. This will cause problems when they try to exchange documents.
You've just locked your company's document destiny to this one software vendor, and they can bleed you dry if they so choose. Or, worse, if they go out of business, you're stuck.
What's worse is that converting from one document format to another is usually difficult because of semantic information loss - different document representations have different assumptions, and it's usually not possible to cleanly translate from one set to another. This is the "lock-in." In strict terms, the software vendor can't charge you more than it could cost you to convert your documents to another format, but who has that particular price at his fingertips at any given moment?
A Different ScenarioNow, let's change the scenario a bit: instread of standardizing on a particular word processing software package, you order that all documents shall be in a standard file format, e.g. SGML with a particular DTD.
In this world, your company makes it clear to all software vendors that this is your chosen corporate document standard and that if they wish your business, their software must implement appropriate interpretation and manipulation of that file format.
This puts those software vendors into competition with each other for your business; presumably the one who can produce the best results with the most pleasant and efficient user interface will win your dollars.
This also gives the various different groups inside your company the freedom to pick the software that best suits their working style, so long as it produces the standard document file format. Everybody wins.
If we take this scenario further - you contact your fellow CIO's in other companies and promote this idea, then even more people and organizations win. Just by doing the right kind of standard.
How the Internet fitsThis is precisely what the Internet is about: standards for networking protocols, for E-mail & messaging, for file transfer, for remote access, and file formats like HTML. The Universities and Research Institutions that initially designed the Internet had exactly this result in mind: no one vendor in control, all competing on a level playing field for the business, with the best results for the customers.
Of course, the big companies will fight this kind of initiative because it requires them to compete harder - they can't rest on their laurels. Small companies will welcome this kind of initiative, because it gives them a foot-in-the-door with potentially big accounts, for (relative to their size) lots of money.
Some vendors will counter with "standards" of their own. Of these, some will be honest attempts to extend an existing public standard in a useful way, and some will be an attempt to stymie the process. The things to watch out for are:
no published specification (or an insufficiently published specification that cannot be independently implemented for lack of particular details).
onerous license or patent restrictions.
No alternative vendors of software for that "standard."
All of these end in customer lock-in to a proprietary "standard" - a situation which is not to the customer's benefit in the long run.
Open, public standards for file formats, and computer networking protocols are the right thing for everybody.
Another essay on this issue can be found at the Best Viewed With Any Browser [anybrowser.org] campaign site.
This article is at http://www.clock.org/~fair/opinion/open-standards. html [clock.org]
Re:AC's and their love of XML (Score:2)
A response (Score:5)
It is not economic losses that the public has suffered, but loss of choice.
Later on in the article, Mr. Wu describes how, in addition to the two computers he uses to get his work done, he keeps a third machine with Windows and MS Office installed just because of Microsoft's monopolistic trade practices. I'd say this counts as an economic loss. Another economic loss is all the downtime and lost productivity due to Windows crashes.
Microsoft's domination has limited the axes of competition to one variable, the ability to work with others on the creation of documents. It has not achieved this from a monopoly in operating systems but a monopoly in application file formats.
I agree that their dominance in the field of file formats is troubling, but in my experience their OS monopoly can't be discounted either. It's both.
With this understanding, it makes the charges of Microsoft abusing it's monopoly position in the browser market irrelevant.
Nobody is accusing Microsoft of having a browser monopoly, much less abusing it. They are accused of using their OS Monopoly to get anti-competitive OEM bundling agreements, and using both of those to unfairly increase their browser's market share (among other things).
This is the sole reason I continue to have in my possession a Windows machine.
See! Economic loss.
The major application of computers is word processing.
No, the major application of computers is database processing. The major application of desktop computers is word processing.
To further emphasize how important paper was in our conception of documents, the importance of the Graphical User Interface or GUI was not ease of use, but in the fact that the computer screen
was true to its eventual appearance on paper. WYSIWYG -- "What You See is What You Get" should have really been called WYSIWYGOP, "What You See is What You Get On Paper." It was this fidelity in desktop publishing that gave the Macintosh its foothold into the prepress business.
There's a great quote, attributed to Brian Kernighan (of C fame), "The trouble with WYSIWYG is that what you see is all you get".
Paper has been replaced by the computer data file, but more specifically the Microsoft Office document.
Agreed, while some offices have rejected the Office document as a standard, too many have not. As long as a significant portion of the people you deal with use a document format, you've got to have a way of using it.
The first step [the government should impose] requires Microsoft to open up their document formats in sufficient detail such that others can create applications which can read Office documents flawlessly.
While I'd love to see such documentation, I disagree that the courts should require it. First off, I think the Justice department should be focusing on addressing Microsoft's direct restraint of trade and other anticompetitive business practices. It's hard to effectively do what you describe from the courts.
Secondly, it is easy for the government to achieve the same goal, without invoking the judiciary, and with a better (IMHO) result. The President should have his technology advisor draft an executive order specifying that by June, 2000, all electronic documents handled within government offices, and transmitted to and from government offices, must follow an attached standard. Then it should go ahead and specify the general standard (XML or whatever), and the specific formats for government word processing documents, spreadsheet documents, etc. The US Government is such a huge consumer of Microsoft products, MS would be foolish to not support such standards. All of us can then use such standards too, whether as a native file format, or merely a standard interchange format. Assuming the government makes their standard flexible and extensible (easy to do with things like XML) it should work well.
I think this is a better way to fix the document issue than to order Microsoft to do something that really can't be enforced.
Doc format incompatabilities (Score:1)
Re:On a personal note... (Score:1)
'go off on its own' (Score:1)
Don't speak too soon, AC. Microsoft products go off and seize control of certain file types when installed on Windows (which has only one default for each type). On the Mac, Microsoft products seize control of the file typing apparatus so that all _future_ downloads of said types are assigned to the Microsoft application. Lastly, Microsoft products can be unsafe to 'try out' because they import other data and silently change important things to a proprietary MS way, literally destroying the original data and taking the new data captive. This last behavior is well known to Web designers experimenting with big cgi-laden sites and trying out Frontpage- suddenly it's all
All it would take is for one of these products to go looking for likely candidates for importing, in much the same way that Windows installers might look for likely unrecognized disk space for formatting.
You are very naive if you think Microsoft products do not actively try to seize and hold control. The only thing stopping them from exhibiting no limits at all, is public outrage. And the public gets tired and cynical after a while...
Re:I don't agree -- it's better to let MS Office d (Score:1)
I was hopeful about this too, but according to the reports at Office 2000's debut, it writes XML which doesn't conform to spec and includes lots of illegal tags which can only be rendered by (surprise!) MS Office 2000 or IE5. I'd call that "Embrace and Stifle."
Re:Target Audience? (Score:1)
Matthew,
I take your points to be valid, as I wrote this article to target the largest audience and felt necessary to explain things to that some readers might not be familiar with. Those readers are assuredly not slashdot readers. This seemed a better alternative to submitting multiple versions for different audiences.
I also took a meditative tone of voice to bring the issue of operating system and application choice away from an abstract position, to a more personal perspective. As for footnotes, I find them to be annoying[1], but can agree with your position. Personal choice and preference rears its ugly head again.
So I took the risk of explaining too much at the risk of offense.
Charles Wu
1. and distracting.
How long will publishing last? (Score:1)
Isn't the whole idea of publishing and producing a document going to need to be overhauled?
Here's a scenario: We all get so interconnected with the convergence of email, voice, networking, chat, web, and whatever else the global data network can put forth that information flow becomes a stream, rather than a granular flow. Where do documents fit in here? Why do we need a document?
Re:Is HTML really non-coopable? (Score:1)
In the cases you mention, I would consider those sites as not using HTML, but the languages you describe. HTTP would just be used as a delivery mechanism for those languages. Granted one can come up with degenerate cases where HTML document is unusable (e.g. a doc composed of one image encoded in a new image format), but the gist of my point I believe is still valid.
Charles Wu
Re:Missed A Point, I Think (Score:1)
I'm pretty sure CAMS uses the posix api, which used to be run on dumb terms, CAMS is very important for maintence troops because it catalogs everything that that needs to be done/has been done. Just an example.
I wish I saw more solaris systems sitting around, but there's nothing I can do about it. It's a sad fact that it's going the way of the dodo, but I have no solotion. At least our vaxen are still running strong.
Target Audience? (Score:1)
Is the Slashdot audience the audience that needs the author's interpretation and sugar coating of the history of Microsoft gaining dominance, in order for us to understand the article? Is the Slashdot audience the audience that needs HTML explained?
Do we represent the people that need small words and short sentences so that we can understand things? I felt like the point in this article was very difficult to get to, because of the assumption that every second word or concept needed to be explained[1].
I actually got the feeling that, in fact, the author was as unfamiliar with this topic as he took his audience to be. This is a mistake, in my opinion -- but my opinion is that the people that know something the rest of us don't are the ones that share in public forums.
I find myself turning rapidly into an old curmudgeon, and while I apologize for it, these are still my views.
1. Footnotes are good for explaining things that some people might need explained, but the majority will not.
Re:Target Audience? (Score:1)
Thank you for responding.
In re-reading my post, it was probably more inflammatory than necessary -- so I apologize. I am extremely glad to know that at least some features on Slashdot are written with a specific audience in mind, whether I agree with that choice of audience or not.
With some of the features I've been seeing lately (and not just Katz's articles and not all of Katz's articles), there seems to be no thought put into target audience, or who that audience is, or...
My personal recommendation for future articles published in a semi-technical forum such as Slashdot would be to assume more baseline knowledge of the audience (keep in mind also that commentators inside said audience can clarify concepts and terms for audience members on the fringe). If the article was intended for much wider distribution, though, that's another thing
Re: AMEN!!! Preach on, brother! This was too long! (Score:1)
when to stop typing!! -- just state your point
and shut up! We didn't need the full history
of desktop publishing and web browser, and that
whole paragraph describing why you use three
machines or whatever -- just get to point!
I don't agree -- it's better to let MS Office die (Score:3)
open the MS Office file formats -- that
would only lead to even stronger support
of MS Office which we don't want -- we want
MS Office file format to die and go away not
become even more common.
Web documents should be the next standard,
not MS Office.
Think about all the proprietaray crap embedded
in each Word and Excel doc -- Windows-specific
fonts, OLE objects, backslased directory names,
ActiveX controls, VBA macros, etc, etc -- you
expect us to adopt all that stuff into other
platforms just so you won't be incovenienced??!!
We want Microsoft to keep doing what it's doing
-- go ahead and make MS Office as incompatible
as possible and slowly and surely people will
throw more support into cleaning up web
document standards and forget about using MS
Office formats.
Support web standards, not M$ standards.
Re:The MS-Office file formats *ARE* freely availab (Score:1)
As someone who is currently working on MSWordView as well as the Word importer for Abiword, I can tell you that the Word file format is a sick joke, and that documentation you reference contains about 80% of what you need to do it, and only 60% of it is actually right. And then, that insane mess of unnecessarily complex data is wrapped inside an OLE2 structured storage object (ie. another poorly documented proprietary creation of Microsoft).
Please, download those docs, and skim through the 500K of documentation. By the end, you will agree the Word file format was created by either a) a company intending for no one else to ever successfully write a perfect Word importer, or b) by sadistic programmers obviously under the heavy influence of one or more narcotics.
And as for their supposed conversion to XML, I'll bet anyone a $1000 that it's non-compliant XML wrapped around arcane, poorly documented (if at all) binary data.
What's most amusing, however, is that you defend Microsoft on this. The documentation on MSDN is a joke. If you want to make use of it, expect lots of reverse engineering, too (as work on WINE will clearly demonstrate). They put that stuff there so suckers like you would think Microsoft is playing nice. They're not. They are bad for this industry. And anyone who tries to tell you the effect of their "standardization" has been good is buying into the MS PR BS, too. Interoperability is easy and reduces costs by increasing competition, and it would be considerably easier if not for Microsoft's anticompetitive, predatory practices. My solution to this antitrust trial? The DOJ shold call up the DOD and have Redmond wiped off the of the planet.
XML.. But who decides the standard? (Score:1)
Even if Micorosoft is using XML, they can add all sorts of proprietary tags to it can't they? As I understand it, XML lets you define your own standard, but if everyone doesn't go by it, then it's worthless. It should be easier to make other products that can read those files, but it wouldn't mean it was a good format? Am I missing something here? I think I need to read a bit more about XML.
M$ Troll Filter (Score:1)
As I roll through the comments it is so obvious which are "astroturf" because the structure of the comment is quite distinct.
I'm sure a talented person could make a filter for this :o).
CC
XML is mostly about data representation? (Score:1)
Of course, this will take years. MS will draw out the process of settling on a common format as long as possible. In the meantime, there are interchange languages. I use them all the time. It is a little inconvenient, mostly because people expect you to have MS Word, but after returning their mail enough and telling them to save it in RTF, they get the point.
HTML itself will become more and more important as companies use intranet webservers to publish internal data. People will realize that saving a document in HTML means it can go up on the web and be viewed by anyone who needs to view it. The web will become the prevalent means of distributed authoring, with things like DAV leading the way.
Still, I think it would be a good idea to force MS to open up it's file formats. It would hurt them worse than almost anything else. Unfortunately, it is far outside the scope of the current trial, and therefore unlikely to be considered.
This is where the monopoly is (Score:2)
also having upgraded from Win 3.10a and a 386 to Win98 and a P-133. However I still cannot read lots of documents people send me because I am still not "current" with everything. This is the upgrade cycle that is much more of a problem than the OS part. Upgrading the office suite forces the OS to be upgraded, not the other way around, and I am forced to upgrade the office suite when the rest of the world upgrades and sends me documents with newer versions of software than I currently own.
Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
Re:Office File Format (Score:2)
[from Woody's Office Watch].
Re:I don't agree -- it's better to let MS Office d (Score:2)
I've know people in the publishing industry, and almost all manuscripts come in as either Word or WordPerfect.
LaTeX, etc is often used for the actual type setting, true, but that's different that the actual processing of words.
--
Re:AC's and their love of XML (Score:2)
Word has had an "open" (docs available) tag markup language for at least 10 years. It's called RTF, and it doesn't do anyone any good if you have to "Save As" to get it. I imagine Word 2000 works the same way (File+Save As Web Page).
--
Re:This is really about Open Standards (Score:2)
I'm sure many CIOs would love to have a vendor-immune standard for storing their information.
The problem comes in the tool set. People buy Microsoft Word because it has 90% of the feature that 90% of the people want. They don't buy it because of which file format it has/doesn't have. You indicated that yourself - Right now it's just not possible.
Microsoft generally gives it's customers just what they want (or deserve!). The problem comes in that their important customers aren't you or I, it a handful of huge corporations and governments.
If the big shops start calling them and saying "We want XML with XYZ-DTD", Microsoft would give it to them. However, in the big shops, "desktop applications" is unfortunately not really considered a major priority relative to the mainframes and business critical systems. Maybe all this garbage about "knowledge management" will put the fire underneath their butts.
--
Re:But you're not allowed to use them! (Score:2)
It's interesting that they won't even let you put out a MacOS-based product that works with MS Office 98.
--
Re:Doc format incompatabilities (Score:2)
People will tell themselves funny things when the want a new toy.
Fact is that Microsoft has produced a Word 2000 converter for Word 6.0 (circa 1993). It's not 100% perfect, but it will bring most stuff in. (A 1993-era computer is a 486/33 or so. )
--
MS Office lock-in: File formats or People like it? (Score:2)
Some of us may remember a time when WordPerfect/DOS had about 80% market share. Within a year or two, Microsoft WinWord demolished it. This was despite the fact that WinWord lacked certain features and had a fairly crappy WordPerfect importer.
Microsoft Word had been development for sometime on Macintoshes, and was by far the most mature PC GUI word processor at the time. People and corporations just took to it - it gave them something close to WYSIWYG, and had substantially lower training and licencing costs. And, contrary to popular belief around here, MS Word and Excel drove MS Windows sales, not visa-versa.
So, if WordPerfect could lose most of their market share even with their proprietary file format, what's to prevent Micrsoft Word from doing the same?
Admittedly, the problem is more pronounced now with e-mail and the like, but if someone invented a word processor that was clearly better than MS Word, and could do a decent job of importing most Word files, Microsoft's market could collapse in an instant.
--
Help me, Janet Reno. You're my only hope. (Score:2)
My users at work double click files they are sent. If they don't open right up, the email is deleted and forgotten. I think most Windows users are the same. It's a matter of convenience, not capability. To own a Windows computer (or even a copy of Office) for the sole purpose of opening the files is a little silly. I don't know what tools are available for Linux, but there are plenty of options for Mac users.
The proposed solution: have the government intervene and force MS to open up their format.
It may take diligence to live in a Microsoft free computing environment, but it is not impossible. I don't think we need Janet Reno to help us open documents.
Every time these debates begin, I warn people that government involvement only grows. There will never be a time when the DOJ does not want to have their hands in the computer pie. Don't scream against the CDA and cheer at the same time for lawsuits that stick it to Bill Gates; they are two sides of the same coin.
It can be tough not to have a government babysitter, ready to make sure your docs open up and your OS is priced fairly, but at least you can stay up past 9:00.
Re:I don't agree -- it's better to let MS Office d (Score:2)
We want Microsoft to keep doing what it's doing -- go ahead and make MS Office as incompatible as possible and slowly and surely people will throw more support into cleaning up web document standards and forget about using MS Office formats.
Proprietary formats make it increasingly difficult for historians and people in general. Have you ever wanted to read your term paper you wrote in 1986 on MacWrite? Chances are you threw out the paper copy knowing you'd have the file on hand.
Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org] (for those who aren't aware, it is an effort to make copyright free texts such as Edgar Allan Poe's writings freely available) has considered the implications of any format into consideration.
Excerpt from Project Gutenberg:
"Suggestions to make them less readily available are not to be treated lightly. Therefore, Project Gutenberg Etexts are made available in what has become known as "Plain Vanilla ASCII," meaning the low set of the American Standard Code for Information Interchange: ie the same kind of character you read on a normal printed page-- italics, underlines, and bolds have been capitalized.
The reason for this is that 99% of the hardware and software a person is likely to run into can read and search these files.
Any other system of etext storage is going to fall short of an audience of 99%.
This does not mean there are not other valid mean of doing the etext business. . .after all, over half the computers are DOS, so one could address a wide audience by just doing DOS. Plain Vanilla ASCII, however, addresses the audience with Apples and Ataris all the way to the old homebrew Z80 computers, while an audience of Mac, UNIX and mainframers is still included.
Even an open standard poses a problem in regards to usability -- especially in the future -- more devices, programs, and a loss of backwards compatibility. What will ever be as universal as plain old text on paper?
And from a historian's point of view, reading what people wrote 15 years ago is becoming increasingly difficult.
I think I've opened a big can of worms...with a few more tangents which could be addressed.
Re:A clarification? (Score:2)
I think it would be an exceedingly unusual person, however, who couldn't be persuaded to switch WP programs for some sum of money.
You've never seen a full-blown vi vs. emacs war, have you?
Sadly, Office has some incompatibilities (Score:2)
File formats are not enough... (sadly) (Score:2)
Even if we implement a "Chinese Wall"-style system between OS and Office divisions of MS (same way as SEC mandates strict information barrier between investment and trading divisions of the same company), I wouldn't bet on a 100% compatible office suite for a non-Win32 OS...
Well, I guess, the situation described by Charles Wu gives yet another meaning to the term "network computer"...
Office documents and their use in the network age (Score:3)
Almost every day I get requests to put MSWord and MSExcel content "on the web." I fight this tooth and nail. We have an extranet web reporting system which collects data from all over the Enterprise. One of my jobs is to get this data into a somewhat coherent form in an Oracle database so our reporting CGIs can generate on-the-fly reports and graphs. I get data in a number of file formats. The best stuff comes from the mainframe folks (from SAS and MUMPS on VAX equipment). These folks understand extracts and data integrety. The worst stuff comes to me in Excel spreadsheets.
The first most obvious evil is file size. Positional or delimited extracts from the mainframe folks are clear, well organized, consistent and compact. On the Excel side I had one file, 750 records, 12 columns. File size? 1,387,000 bytes! Why? A similar file from the mainframe folks is about 110,000 bytes.
The next evil is data integrety. I have to explain over and over again to the Excel folks why they should use unique ids for each reporting unit, that they should use the same id for the same reportin unit across files. They tell me th names are on the spreadsheets, so why do I need that? I try to explain that there are spelling, capitalization, and punctuation differences between the names in each of the file depending on who types them. I try to explain that ID numbers are harder to mistype and that they are more efficient to search on.
They don't get it.
Microsoft has put computing power into the hands of people who don't know how to use it. I know that sounds techno-elitist of me, but it is TRUE! There is so much corruption of data going on out there because everyone has a PC on his or her desk. I wouldn't care if it were not for the fact that these people then come back to IS and say "make this all work together." That's where I get upset.
You see, I am all in favor of "power to the people" when it comes to information, but to me this is like studying taxidermy and thinking that makes you an open-heart surgeon.
Getting back to the web, that's the final evil. Try to explain to these people that some of our clients use Macs or that it might be unreasonable to assume that all of our customers have to buy Office and they just don't get it. Show them the difference in performance between downloading an HTML table and an Excel spreadsheet with the same content, and then tell them how much worse it would be on a 28.8 modem instead of a T1 and maybe they get it, but its a hard sell.
My Linux bigotry comes not from an inherent hatred of Windows per se. It comes from the fact that Linux embraces standards, and Windows makes it up as it goes along.
I'm afraid I'd have to side with the folks who say these formats should die. Even if enerything in the world interoperated with them, they stink as network delivery formats for pure bandwidth reasons. Their signal to noise ratio is too low.
A clarification? (Score:2)
Loss of choice is an economic loss, insofar as you would accept some amount of money as compensation for loss of choice (among word processors, etc.(*)).
Perhaps a better way of putting this is that any consumer losses are not directly measurable losses such as losses due to higher prices for particular commodities, but instead are losses arising out of indirect economic harm. (E.g., I'm forced to choose between (a) the inconvenience of not using my preferred WP, causing me to expend extra labor, and (b) the prospect of losing customers at my printing business because I can't read their documents).
(* To stave off the anti-M$ troops: Clearly some "losses of choice" are not compensable in money -- e.g., loss of freedom of religion. I think it would be an exceedingly unusual person, however, who couldn't be persuaded to switch WP programs for some sum of money.)
The MS-Office file formats *ARE* freely available. (Score:2)
How to Obtain Microsoft Office File Formats
The MS Office file formats (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Office Binder and Office Drawing) are all freely available from the MS web site provided you are a member of the MS Developer Network (MSDN). Joining MSDN is free to gain access to these specifications
Simply go to the following address:
http://msdn.microsoft.com
From the list on the left of the screen select MSDN library online
If you are not a member of the MS Developer Network you will need to join - it's free.
Once you have subscribed to the MSDN, you can obtain online copies of the file formats. To do this, follow these steps:
1.On the MSDN World Wide Web site, click MSDN Library Online.
2.Under Member Area, click the Library Online tab.
3.Double-click Microsoft Office Development.
4.Double-click Office.
5.Double-click Microsoft Office 97 Binary File Formats.
6.Select the format you are interested in (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.)
Welcome to MS-Web 2000 (Score:2)
1) Microsoft is still working very hard to co-opt the web. And, with Office 2000, they're doing that very well with their funky Captive-X controls. What does that mean to the consumer? You'll soon be seeing a lot more Windows/IE-only areas on the web.
2) They have made HTML the "sister file format" of Office 2000. The theory being that you can now save your file to HTML and have it be functionally/visually identical to saving it in the Word/Excel/Powerpoint/etc file format. Why are they doing this? Because it lets them tie into #1. All of these Office 2000 generated Web pages use Microsoft's 'embrace and extend'ed web technologies.
So, a year from now, when you're no longer recieving Office documents, but URLs to web-documents which can only be viewed/edited using IE5 for Windows, which of your 3 machines will you be using to browse the web?
Oh, and that stupid paperclip is now 3-D looking! Like I didn't have enough CPU cycles to burn...I swear, someone should put together an Office Assistant theme pack for Q3...Fragging the clip would be such a rewarding experience!
Ultimately, what will doom Office are the new, ever-more-destructive OTDs (Outlook/Office Transmitted Diseases) like worm.explorer.zip and Melissa or the raft of Word Macro Virii out there which target the "integrated" Office platform. You thought they were bad before...just wait until they find a way to target the executable code that handles the "self-repairing" and "install on demand" functions of 2000...
Disagree (Score:2)
The core of the anti-trust litigation is whether the consumer has been harmed. Windows runs on over 90% of the world's PCs and it is difficult to purchase a system from an OEM without it preloaded. As a result of this power, Microsoft has ensured that OS/2, DOS(MS as well as others), Intel Unixes(including Linux), and others all have to fight for less than 10% of the market. With the price of computers constantly decreasing, Windows prices have skyrocketed exponentially and continue to do so.
"if there is one thing to be learned from what happened to internet browsers is that Microsoft is willing to engage in predatory pricing to drive out competitors."
This notion seems to contradict the prime assertion of the essay. Microsoft's bundling of I.E. has clearly resulted in a destryed browser market and the corporate sale of Netscape. One could argue Opera is not free but Opera has a minute market share and is very limited as to what platforms it supports. If the barriers to entry are severe for browser sellers, there won't be browser sellers. Clearly that has harmed consumers--not in the availability of free browsers but that there are only 2 browsers that support modern web standards.
Granted, there are many examples we can point to about the anti-competitive practices of Microsoft. Office is among those examples. However, what the government is asserting and what seems most valid is that Microsoft used unfair tactics to gain the power it had. Had it not used those tactics, Office, Internet Explorer, Windows, and other examples of anti-competitive behavior would not have profited at the expense of the consumer and competition. In other words, had Microsoft not destroyed consumer choice and competition these issues would not exist. We can go after little flames of monopoly--like Office and IE, but until we address the root of the problem, more flames will appear. Therefore, it would be wrong to assert that the government is fighting for the wrong reasons, however poorly or greatly they do so.
-Clump
What about IFF? (Score:2)
It seems to me that a revival of this excellent format is in order. It would make it possible for any program to read any document of any type, simply by only pulling out the "chunks" it wanted and ignoring the rest.
Also IFF was defined to always be an open format. Any new "chunk" type had to be documented and registered, and then placed in the public domain to be viewed by anyone who wanted. In the days before WWW this was a lot more difficult, because you'd have to order a new "Inside Amiga" book to get the latest chunk information.
I would suggest to those in the Linux community who have not as-yet started making Open Document Format Standards a priority that the time is precisely NOW! to do it, and I can't imagine a better wrapper than IFF.
Let this stand as the seed of a manifesto.