On Thu, 2005-09-01 at 12:31 -0400, swhiser wrote:
> Postmortem:
> 
> ********************************************************************
> Microsoft's damage-control messaging is that this as a cost risk and a 
> political situation:
> 
> "I think it would be pretty risky for the state of Massachusetts to go 
> in a direction like this without a clear look at the costs first,” said 
> Alan Yates, general manager of the Office division at Microsoft.

Seems pretty risky to remain locked into a single vendor when there is
an opportunity not to be.

> He also suggested that the proposal, which was produced by the state’s 
> chief information officer, was the product of “a very political 
> situation,” though he declined to elaborate. 

And maintaining the status quo to the benefit of a monopolist wouldn't
be political? Clutching at straws.

> Bob Sutor at IBM:
> 
> "To be clear, there is nothing preventing Microsoft and others from 
> implementing and supporting the OASIS OpenDocument format. This should 
> not be looked as "against" anyone but rather "for" real open standards 
> created in a community way in standards organizations."

ISTR a senior Microsoft Exec. saying that the reason they didn't
implement filters for OpenOffice.org was lack of customer demand and
that Microsoft always responded to the customer (ha ha :-) ). Ok here is
a very sizeable customer demanding ODF support. Come on MS implement it
as the default for the next release of MSO and show you are willing to
compete on an even footing with everyone else. Fact is if you don't you
will be competing on your own when the EU do what Massachusetts has just
done and other governments follow suit. 

-- 
Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ZMSL


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