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[News] [Rival] School District Does Microsoft Marketing, Encourages Lock-in

  • Subject: [News] [Rival] School District Does Microsoft Marketing, Encourages Lock-in
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:40:52 +0100
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
[It's like the BBC, National Archives, and the British Library, all of which
are batting for Bill and Steve]

Batavia parents to shell out for back-to-school

,----[ Quote ]
| The district recently sent a letter to high school parents notifying them 
| that all the computers in the district this summer are being updated with 
| Microsoft Office 2007.  
| 
| District officials could not be reached for comment.
| 
| The letter stressed the disadvantages of not having the new software, which 
| carries a suggested retail price of $499.99. 
| 
| “If students use an older version of Microsoft Office at home, it is usually 
| possible to translate their projects back and forth between different 
| versions of Microsoft Office,”the letter said. “However, this can be a 
| tedious process, and information may not be always be translated properly.”   
`----

http://www.kcchronicle.com/articles/2007/07/27/news/local/doc46a9cc9908105330494432.txt

Watch this one article below about Office 2007 breaking de facto standards.


[OOXML] Math markup marked down

,----[ Quote ]
| It appears that Science, the journal of the America Association for the 
| Advancement of Science (AAAS), itself the largest scientific society in the 
| world, has updated its authoring guidelines to include advice for Office 
| 2007 users. The news is not good.
| 
| [...]
| 
| Uh oh. Not only cannot you not submit files in OOXML format, but 
| you can't even use Office 2007 and save in the old binary formats. 
| The choice to invent a new "Open Math Markup Language" rather 
| then use the well-established existing standard, MathML, appears 
| to be a serious flaw.
`----

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/04/math-markup-marked-down.html



Related:

In case you were wondering how big 6000 pages is: OpenXML/OOXML/whatever

,----[ Quote ]
| Take a look at this photo from an OOXML workshop. (Read the blog entry
| too.) [Photo of a pile of 6,000+ pages]
| 
| I don't know what your job is, but imagine your boss came to you and
| said "read this, fully understand it, implement it perfectly, and make
| sure that it fully interoperates with the software being produced by
| anyone else doing the same." Translate this statement to your own job
| and stare again at that photo. What do you conclude?
| 
|     * You'll have lifetime employment trying to implement the spec.
|     * Your boss comes from another wacko parallel universe.
|     * This is a joke if not a travesty.
|     * Your job evaluation will not be very good next year.
|     * There is no way you can fully do the job without
|       reimplementing significant portions of Microsoft's product
|       portfolio and therefore you will run into intellectual
|       property problems. (Don?t think that's a problem?)
|     * Microsoft is trying to change the rules on what is a standard
|       and who can implement it.
`----

http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1634


http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/04/16/2019244


Packing The Court At The ISO?

,----[ Quote ]
|      ...P member countries ('participating member' countries) sending 
|     representatives, and I am interested to note the majority of
|     their representatives are, as individuals, also Microsoft employees.
| 
| [...]
| 
| How can they not see that OOXML (ECMA 376) is unwanted by anyone outside of 
| Microsoft? How about it Brian Jones? Are you really so desperate that you
| have to resort to that?
`----

http://lnxwalt.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/packing-the-court-at-the-iso/


Q&A: Former Mass. CIO feels 'bittersweet pride' after battles with Microsoft,
legislature

,----[ Quote ]
| As CIO of Massachusetts from February to November last year, Louis 
| Gutierrez had to endure most of the brunt of Microsoft Corp.'s political 
| wrath over a state policy calling for the adoption of the Open Document 
| Format for Office Applications, or ODF -- a rival to the software vendor's 
| Office Open XML file format.
`----

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9012760&source=rss_news50


,----[ Quote ]
|    Quinn:  Almost to a person, to anybody involved or who knows about
|    the ODF issue, they attributed the story to Microsoft, right, wrong
|    or otherwise. Senator Pacheco may be a bully but I do not believe he
|    is disingenious and would stoop to such a tactic. Senator Pacheco and
|    Secretary Galvin's office remain very heavily influenced by the
|    Microsoft money and its lobbyist machine, as witnessed by their
|    playbook and words, in my opinion.
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060119232859729


MA Governor-Elect Names MS Anti-ODF Lobbyist to Technology Advisory Group

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20061128161343183


The Sorry State of Massachusetts

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2006111603531029


Microsoft offers schools in Mass. free software [to stop ODF adoption]

http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6090196.html?part=rss&tag=6090196&subj=news


Microsoft plays Massachusetts Senate card

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32515


Microsoft playing three card monte with XML conversion

,----[ Quote ]
| Gary Edwards of the Open Document Foundation, a leading member
| of its technical committee, says Microsoft is playing proprietary
| games aimed at controlling XML file formats and preventing the
| Open Document Format from gaining a foothold.
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=959


http://forums.scc.ca/forums/scc/dispatch.cgi/public/docProfile/100009/d20070501143554/No/t100009.htm

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