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The IOWA Comes vs. Microsoft antitrust suit evidence is now publicly available. This ZDNet Talkback posts an extraordinary eMail from Bill Gates concerning the need to control MSOffice formats and protocols as Microsoft pushes onto the Web. I've also attached a rather comprehensive summary of events regarding ISO approval of MSOffice OOXML, tying it back into the meaning of the 1998 eMail directive from Chairman Bill.
The key point is that Chairman Bill understands that the real threat to Microsoft is that of Open Web formats and protocols outside of Microsoft's control.
anti-trust browser-wars gates msoffice netscape ooxml w3c comes iowa
Hi Robert,
What you've posted are examples of MSOffice ”compatibility settings” used to establish backwards compatibility with older documents, and, for the conversion of alien file formats (such as various versions of WordPerfect .wpd). These compatibility settings are unspecified in that we know the syntax but have no idea of the semantics. And without the semantic description there is no way other developers can understand implementation. This of course guarantees an unacceptable breakdown of interoperability.
But i would be hesitant to make my stand of rejecting OOXML based on this issue. It turns out that there are upwards of 150 unspecified compatibility settings used by OpenOffice/StarOffice. These settings are not specified in ODF, but will nevertheless show up in OpenOffice ODF documents – similarly defying interoperability efforts!
Since the compatibility settings are not specified or even mentioned in the ODF 1.0 – ISO 26300 specification, we have to go to the OOo source code to discover where this stuff comes from. Check out lines 169-211. Here you will find interesting settings such as, “UseFormerLineSpacing, UseFormerObjectPositioning, and UseFormerTextWrapping”.
So what's going on here?
Page Comments
The key point is that Chairman Bill understands that the real threat to Microsoft is that of Open Web formats and protocols outside of Microsoft's control. It's 1998, and the effort to "embrace and eXtend" W3C HTML, XHTML, SVG and CSS isn't working well. The good Chairman notifies the troops that MSOffice must come up with another plan.
Interestingly, it's not until 2001, when OpenOffice releases an XML encoding of the OpenOffice/StarOffice imbr that Microsoft finally sees a solution! (imbr = in-memory-binary-representation)
The MSOffice crew immediately sets to work creating a similar XML encoding of the MSOffice binary (imbr) dump. The first result is released in the MSOffice 2003 beta as "WordprocessingML and SpreadsheetML".
XML was designed as a structured language for creating specific structured languages. OpenOffice saw the potential of using XML to create an OpenOffice specific XML language. MSOffice seized the innovation and the rest is history. Problem solved!
So what was the "problem" the good Chairman identified in this secret eMail? It's that the Web is the future, and Microsoft needed to find a way of leveraging their existing desktop document "editor" monopoly share into owning and controlling the Web formats produced by Microsoft applications. MSOffice OOXML is the result.
ISO approval of MSOffice OOXML is beyond important to Microsoft. It establishes MSOffice "editors" as standards compliant. It also establishes the application, platform and vendor specific MSOffice OOXML as an international "open" standard.
Many will ask why this isn't a case of Microsoft actually opening up the MSOffice formats in compliance with government antitrust demands. It is "compliance", but not in the sense of what the world expects and needs. It's compliance with what the world demanded back in 1995: full documentation of the application specific MSOffice binary (and xml encoded) format representation.
The thing is, the web is the future. What matters is the conversion of MSOffice OOXML to a web ready format.
In December of 2007, when much of the world was focused on the 1995 battle between OpenOffice ODF and MSOffice OOXML at ISO, Microsoft released the MSOffice 2007 SDK beta. In this beta was a nifty two way conversion component for converting OOXML <> XAML "fixed/flow".
Uh Oh.
XAML is the "Web ready" format aspect of the entirely proprietary Windows Presentation Foundation layer (WPF). XAML joins Silverlight, XPS, Smart Tags and LINQ as core components of WPF.
These core components can be seen as proprietary alternatives to Open Web and Adobe standards such as the W3C's XHTML, CSS, SVG, XForms, CDF, RDF, RDFa, SPARQL, Mozilla's XUL, JavaScript, and Adobe's Flash, Flex, AIR, PDF and ePUB.
And there you go. The IE 8.0 beta limits support to HTML-5 bits and CSS 2.1. Forget about JavaScript, SVG, RDF, and XHTML.
What i see here is that Microsoft is preparing a complete Web-Stack of business oriented applications and services capable of speaking both "low level" Web and "high level" WPF (XAML-Silverlight).
Look at the connection between MSOffice and the Exchange/SharePoint/SQL Server Web-Stack. It's filled with proprietary protocols and format conversions. Microsoft owns the "client" in client/server. The OBA (Office Business Architecture) binds many a client/server business process and more than a few workgroup-workflow activities. It was the OBA phenomenon that stopped ODF in Massachusetts! Stopped it so cold that the phrase "ODF is impossible to implement" found it's way into the general lexicon.
So imagine that the world is really thirsting to migrate these client/server business processes to the newly emerging model known as client/Web-Stack/server. Microsoft has been busy putting in the pieces to facilitate this, but, as the 1998 eMail reads, seeks to control the transition. They needed their own "web ready" formats and protocols; including the collaboration protocols!
They also needed a Web-Stack capable of speaking both Open Web and MS Web.
My feeling is that ISO approval of MSOffice OOXML was the final piece to the MS puzzle. It solved the antitrust problem while protecting the proprietary WPF alternative to Open Web formats and protocols. In the aftermath of ISO approval, Live-Mesh and Silverlight development efforts were thrown into high gear. The Exchange/SharePoint/SQL-S3erver juggernaut looks unstoppable. And MSOffice is now an open standards compliant "editor" producing formats that have only one useful future direction; a XAML "fixed/flow" web ready direction.
In light of these developments, it makes sense that Microsoft would comply with as many antitrust related ISO NB concerns as possible. Supporting ODF in MSOffice and joining the OASIS ODF TC are a small price to pay for the opportunity ISO approval of MSOffice-OOXML creates. ODF is not an interoperable format anyway, so data loss on conversion happens to everyone. Who can blame Microsoft for lousy conversions when, after over five years as a member of the OASIS ODF TC, KOffice will have even worse conversion fidelity!
It's important to note that the greatest threat to Microsoft's Web push is that of antitrust. If they can corral antitrust concerns and focus them on 1995 issues, they can push MSOffice client/server to the MS Web without notice. Thus achieving exactly what antitrust was designed to prevent; the leveraging of an existing monopoly into control and dominance of emerging markets.
At the end of the day, Google may well own the "consumer" side of the Web. With Microsoft owning the "business" side of the Web. Such is the power of controlling that transition from client/server to client/Web-Stack/server and the Mesh of SOA, SaaS and Web RIA 3.0 that follows.
Hope this helps,
~ge~
From: Bill Gates Sent:
Saturday, December 5 1998
To: Bob Muglia, Jon DeVann, Steven Sinofsky
Subject : Office rendering
"One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform.
This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destroy Windows. I would be glad to explain at a greater length.
Likewise this love of DAV in Office/Exchange is a huge problem. I would also like to make sure people understand this as well."
http://boycottnovell.com/comes-vs-microsoft/text/msg00005.html
This part of a really good transcribed IOWA-Comes-Microsoft resource at:
http://boycottnovell.com/comes-vs-microsoft/text/
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