Is Microsoft Running Scared of OpenDocument?

PDF Zone ^ | 10-3-2005 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[N3WBI3]

Opinion: It's not coincidence that after Massachusetts made it clear that it would support open formats, Microsoft is now going to include PDF in the next version of Office.

What is Microsoft up to, anyway, with its sudden plan to finally support PDF?

It wasn't announced by Bill Gates loudly to the world at the Professional Developer Conference a few weeks ago. It also wasn't proclaimed to the Microsoft faithful at its recent Most Valuable Professional Global Summit.

No, instead, Microsoft quietly squeaked out the news on a Saturday afternoon in Microsoft Office Program Manager Brian Jones' Weblog.

Could it be that it's because Microsoft is backing its way into ever so reluctantly supporting an open format after Massachusetts decided that it would only use office suites that supported open formats like PDF and OpenDocument?

It certainly looks that way to me.

For all of its talk about being an innovator, Microsoft is really just a follower.

PointerClick here to read more about Microsoft's decision to build PDF support into Office 12.

Sometimes, of course, the company is a very, very reluctant follower. It took Microsoft's leadership forever to live down the fact that they had initially dismissed the Internet. Now, I see Microsoft slowly and painfully embracing open standards.

Mind you, this move is just a beginning. I recently pointed out that it would be trivial for Microsoft to add OpenDocument support to Office.

I don't see that happening anytime soon now though.

With PDF support alone, Microsoft can still try for Massachusetts government contracts without having to add OpenDocument.

Well, until StarOffice, OpenOffice.org and WordPerfect's support for OpenDocument force Microsoft's hand anyway.

After all, PDF is much more of an end-result format than one that most people actually want to edit in. As OpenDocument and the applications that enable it gain more support, Microsoft will find itself forced into supporting it too.

Now, some might say that this is just Microsoft giving the people what they want. Many users have been asking for a PDF option from Microsoft since Adobe Acrobat 4 appeared in 1999.

eWEEK Special Report: Office Politics

But, if that's all there was to it, then why was Microsoft banging the drum for its own PDF substitute, Metro, only a few months ago?

Still others might say that is part and parcel of Microsoft's recent efforts to compete against Adobe in other ways: Sparkle vs. Flash, Acrylic vs. Photoshop and so on.

To which, I say, "Why now? Why announce it in such a subdued way?"

No, all those other things play a role, but at the end of the day, Microsoft felt that it must make at least a concession to open standards by adopting PDF.

After all, it's not like Massachusetts is the only entity that is seriously considering making supporting open standards a requirement for its software purchases. Massachusetts was just the first to make it official.

Microsoft would love it if it could make everyone stick to its proprietary formats. That forces customers to keep buying its products. But it can't. And, much as Microsoft may hate it, its executives know it. So it is that as quietly as the company could, Microsoft is, once more, making concessions to open standards.

eWEEK.com Senior Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been using and writing about operating systems since the late '80s and thinks he may just have learned something about them along the way. He can be reached at sjvn@ziffdavis.com.

[antiRepublicrat]

So if you scan something in for evidence, or historical purposes nobody can turn around and say something has altered.

I can alter PDFs with the full version of Acrobat. Any legal archivals need to have some sort of security in place, at best built-in encryption and validation of the PDF, at the very least a hash of the PDF. And setting "Do not edit" when saving a PDF doesn't do a bit of good.

[Golden Eagle]

Are you going for the coveted 2005 "Most Words Posted by a Tech Freeper" award?

These boys have a lot of propoganda to push, when you want all software to be free but are stuck down at 3%.

[antiRepublicrat]

Answer: No, Microsoft is just continuing to support industry standard formats such as their own and the longtime Adobe format, just as any huge company trying to satisfy a huge customer base would do.

Except they refuse to support a standard format despite the requests of their customers for fear of Office losing Marketshare. They must be really freaking now after the Google/Sun announcement.

[Golden Eagle]

They must be really freaking now after the Google/Sun announcement.

What announcement? That google toolbar will use Java? ROFL, I bet they are TERRIFIED!

[antiRepublicrat]

What announcement? That google toolbar will use Java?

Mainly that Google is committed to OpenOffice. OO will get a LOT more marketshare once the single most visited site on the Web starts promoting it. Most people don't use it simply because they don't know it -- and now they will.

[zeugma]

I consider that part of largely uneditable. There's lots of reasons, legal and logistical, why it's preferable to be able to send out documents that can't be edited without some major hoops and probably expensive software, and PDF is largely alone in that.

Something that I'd like to see in an OpenDocument format is the ability to have within it, a cryptographic signature (hash) of the document, so you could verify that the document had not been modified. You could even use this to validate authorship. It would be tricky to do right, but I can easily imagine how it would be possible with files similar to what StarOffice/OpenOffice creates.

[TechJunkYard]

Answer: No, Microsoft is just continuing to support industry standard formats such as their own and the longtime Adobe format, just as any huge company trying to satisfy a huge customer base would do.

Really... so why won't Microsoft fully support ODF then?

[N3WBI3]

Thanks for the clarification..

[N3WBI3]

Something like an encrypted md5chksum field? Or are you going over my head?

[Golden Eagle]

Really... so why won't Microsoft fully support ODF then?

Obviously because there's no users of it. Or none significant enough to mention. PDF, a whole different matter. They may eventually even make it fairly user friendly, LOL. As for ODF, with liberals like those in Massachusetts and other fanatics like Richard Stallman supporting it, I could care less if Microsoft eventually supports it or not, I sure won't.

[Golden Eagle]

OO will get a LOT more marketshare once the single most visited site on the Web starts promoting it.

ROFL, Google is easily behind Yahoo and MSN in visitors, get your facts straight for once. Not to mention the Google page has nothing on it anyway, I just checked and there's no link to OO. Sounds like more of your normal BS, probably is.

[Golden Eagle]

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none

[N3WBI3]

Scientific information gathered from:

"The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach)."

Whatever the heck Alexa is...

with nice little things like this

"Multiple page views of the same page made by the same user on the same day are counted only once."

Apparently myspace.com gets more traffic than AOL, CNN, and MapQuest according to this 'tool'.. but its linked off the Internet so it must be true..

[rzeznikj at stout]

I already create MD5chksums with my documents. There's a small, free program I use--it works with Windows, and runs excellent in WINE (on my copy of Slax). I can copy the MD5 hashes that come up, put it in the end of the document, and then if need be, run an MD5 check with Slax and the docunent.

Unfortunately, I have no real way of sending it to you guys--it's executable code, and my email service prohibits the sending of code. :(

Unless you guys know of a way I could package that program to send it. (I'm using Gmail...)

[N3WBI3]

I already create MD5chksums with my documents.

Oh ditto but thats not embedded, I actaully run a CVS repository locally for my docs..

[ShadowAce]

LOL! That's even worse than posting a yahoo search and claiming it's proof of whatever point you're trying to make.

[ShadowAce]

Unless you guys know of a way I could package that program to send it. (I'm using Gmail...)

Try zipping it or tar.

[rzeznikj at stout]

I've tried. Gmail still finds the code after I've tarred and Gzipped it to death...

[rzeznikj at stout]

Yeah, embedded would be real nice--then I don't have to worry about keeping my hash prog with Slax's websave.

On the other hand, I can't find OO for Slax, and everytine I try to convert the Slackware 10.1 tgz to the .mo format for Slax, it fails to convert.

Any idea if AbiWord's looking on getting on with Open Document?

[ShadowAce]

I've tried. Gmail still finds the code after I've tarred and Gzipped it to death...

Hmm. I'm not familiar with Gmail, but try renaming the file so it does not end in .exe and then tar it. Perhaps it can tunnel into archive files to see what you are sending, but stops at the filename.