Get a Life? - Get a Clue
,----[ Quote ]
| I came across the following at the weekend:
|
| Speaking at a Microsoft-hosted event, analyst David Mitchell revealed he
| used to lecture police on riot control, before eventually becoming the
| senior vice president of IT research at Ovum.
|
| [...]
|
|
| "I feel like getting hold of people and saying 'get a life'," he
| adds. "It's only a document format. It's just got too silly."
|
| Only a document format?!? How can someone who's supposed to be an analyst be
| unaware of the larger issues? Document formats are the offline equivalent of
| HTML, and openness is just as critical off as on the Web. To say that "it's
| only a document format" misses the point entirely.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2008/02/get-life-get-clue.html
Recent:
How to Get Your Platform Accepted as a Standard - Microsoft Style
,----[ Quote ]
| In the section of an internal manual on effective evangelism, written in 1997
| by James Plamondon, Technical Evangelist, he lays out an elaborate series of
| steps to get Microsoft's platforms accepted as de facto standards. Among the
| steps lists are working behind the scenes with supposedly independent but
| actually pliable and supportive analysts and consultants.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071023002351958
Related:
EU Initiates Investigation Against Microsoft OOXML Push
,----[ Quote ]
| But with Steve Ballmer taking over as CEO, there was supposed to be a kinder,
| gentler Microsoft - one that would play nicely with its competitors. When
| antitrust regulators in turn challenged this new Microsoft, it issued not
| challenges to fight to the end to prove that it had done nothing illegal, but
| statements promising to "cooperate fully."
|
| But at the same time, Microsoft is still a tough competitor. As Microsoft's
| Director of Corporate Standards Jason Matusow famously warned at his blog
| last year:
|
| Make no mistake; all parties are looking at the full picture to find
| strategies that will result in the outcome they desire. Provided - of
| course - that they do so within the context of the rules that apply to
| the process, this is exactly what one should expect to happen. It is
| going to be a very interesting next few months.
|
| Indeed, the months that followed proved to be interesting indeed. Microsoft
| said that some of its employees became over zealous, most flagrantly in
| Sweden, where marketing assists were promised to several business partners as
| incentives to join the national standards committee and vote for OOXM.
`----
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080208082501776
EU Commission Investigating Microsoft's MSOOXML Push
,----[ Quote ]
| I hope they think to investigate the smear campaigns that seem to always
| happen to anyone on the other side from Microsoft. What happened to Peter
| Quinn was by no means unique.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080208151410252
Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format
,----[ Quote ]
| Is this just a random coincidence? The median of the CPI index of the above
| mentioned 70 countries is 3.95. Of the most corrupted half (CPI index less
| than 3.95) 23 or 77% voted for approval (approval or approval with comments)
| and 7 or 23% for disapproval; 5 abstained. Of the least corrupted half (CPI
| index more than 3.95) 13 or 54% voted for approval and 11 or 46% voted for
| disapproval; 11 abstained - see the table below.
`----
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html
Microsoft accused of more OOXML standards fiddling
,----[ Quote ]
| However the 11 new countries are refusing to say how they will vote. These
| include Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Malta, Pakistan,
| Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela. Most people seem to think
| that these have been put there by Vole to make sure the standard gets pushed
| through.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=42106
|
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