Two thoughts on that:
1. When I read about the MA decision I thought of you (how odd considering I don't even know you).
2. If I didn't know that you report to Jim instead of Jeff I would say something about cajones. But huzzah anyway, Adam!

I'd give you the cajones prize if you took on the as-yet-undoc'd changes in the new boot loader, though. Same story; different book.

Thanks.

Interesting article, thanks. I have to take issue with your assertion: "I'm not suggesting that Microsoft support OpenDocument. Far from it. As you know, standards move slowly and can be perpetually one generation behind the state of the art. Microsoft is correct that its XML format is more advanced than OpenDocument, and in this case there is no reason for Microsoft to shackle itself to a standards body." This is utter baloney. Office XML may be more advanced than OpenDocument in some ways, but the fact is that OpenDocument pioneered many of the changes being proposed for Office XML (zip file based, etc.) and shipped them YEARS before Office 12 will. Fact is, OASIS started working on standardizing OpenDocument in 2002, based on the code that SHIPPED in OpenOffice well before that. Seems to me that Microsoft is the one who's a generation (or more) behind, and if the new Office 12 file formats weren't better than the OpenDocument formats they were "inspired" by, then that would just mean that Microsoft had utterly failed to come up with anything new when responding to a 5 year old file format.

Andrew, you're saying that OpenDocument pioneered the concept of an XML file format. That's not what I'm talking about. I mean the specifics of how rich the format can be. This is what Microsoft is complaining about -- can you embed such-and-such random object, or support such-and-such formatting notion, in the schema.

- adam

Actually, according to Gary Edwards, who is on the OpenDoccument technical committee, they worked very hard to make sure the standard could handle everything in Microsoft's file formats, and is highly extensible for the future.

Adam, regarding licensing of Office formats - have you read through this letter? http://www.microsoft.com/office/xml/janletter.mspx ?

Specifically, it states that:

• The technical documentation is available on the Internet for anyone to copy and read
• The schemas are based on the W3C XML standard
• The license is royalty-free
• The license is perpetual
• The license is very brief and available to everyone

Oleg, it looks like Microsoft is resolving any issues towards having everyone consider the Office XML open. But that's not what I'm talking about. There are millions of .DOC files out there. Yes, you can save them in XML in Word 2003, and there will be programs you can run to convert .DOC to .XML...but in fact few people save as XML and few people will run the converters, and the .DOC files will sit around forever.

I especially don't see why Microsoft cares about keeping .DOC proprietary when XML is going to be the default in Office 12 anyway.

- adam

Adam,

Sounds like a very reasonable suggestion. Out of interest though, couldn't this have been sent to Jeff internally vs a public forum? Isn't Jeff just as focused on doing the right thing for the company and its customers? If so, shouldn't he be receptive to creative suggestions such as this one? I'm a MSFT shareholder and am trying to understand why employees seem to increasingly be choosing the public route vs going through internal channels. If it's because senior executives like Jeff aren't receptive, then I'm very concerned and Ballmer et al need to deal with that asap.

Bob:

>I'm a MSFT shareholder and am trying to understand why employees seem to increasingly be choosing the public route vs going through internal channels.

It's because of how Microsoft is really run. It's both from the top and from the bottom. It's a consensus-driven culture here. So, if you want to enact change you can't do it from just the top. You've gotta do it from the bottom too.

So, when we post things publicly we're trying to change both the top and the bottom at the same time. It's amazing how much more effective it is to do this work in public, by the way. Maybe that's a bad thing. I don't think so, though.

This is a FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT in how corporations work. One that we're just starting to figure out ourselves. But, one that has much better scale and makes employees much more bought into the process. And, because the work is done in public view it's usually a lot stronger work too.

Typical Scoble. Likes to pretend he can be critical of management when it's a soft intangible issue like discrimination.

When it comes to something concrete like opening up file formats, not a peep on his blog.

What a doofus.

"So, when we post things publicly we're trying to change both the top and the bottom at the same time. It's amazing how much more effective it is to do this work in public, by the way. Maybe that's a bad thing. I don't think so, though."

Thx Robert although I'm interested in hearing Adam's perspective esp in this case which seems pretty straightforward (i.e. visible problem, possible creative solution that needs to go up the chain and be reviewed by the VP in charge). Personally, I understand and respect the need for public bloggers like yourselves to maintain some objectivity and not just be a conduit for passing out the Kool Aid. But I'm not at all convinced that this increasingly public pitting of employees vs mgt is good for the company/customers or shareholders. In particular, I find it concerning that many such posts have an implicit tone that mgt either doesn't get, doesn't want to, or (worst of all) isn't being honest. Resonable people can disagree, but if/when the very motivations/voracity/customer focus of mgt is suspect, then the answer is change mgt not escalate public visibility. Again, I'm not suggesting that Adam's post does any/all of these or is one of the more aggregious - a few of Dare's recent ones come to mind for that. I just think that at some point there's a line where public dissension is counter-productive internally and only fuels popular external perspections of MSFT as confused, non customer focused, etc.

Bob, as you were entering your comment I was answering your original question in a separate post:

http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/09/emailing_execut.html

My personal opinion is, this kind of public debate is healthy. We are customer-focused because we are debating how to make things better for customers.

But as I said in my other post, I am also doing this in public to increase the chance of it happening.

- adam

Responding to your response to my original comment: no, that is not what you said. You said standards bodies were slow and a generation behind. I dispute this: in this case, Microsoft is clearly trying to catch up with an existing standard, and the fact that the existing standard doesn't support every little feature Microsoft wants doesn't a priori turn the standards body into a follower instead of a leader.

Thx for the response Adam. Your detailed answer at least let's me understand your reasoning. It's also clear that your motivation is to help customers and the company and imo that's critical generally and in particular with public posts such as this one. Don't get me wrong, as a shareholder, I'm fully aware that MSFT has major problems and am all for seeing them raised and addressed. I just think that employees who similarly want to see the company get better need to be cautious that their posts aren't adding more fodder for the company's many external detractors (i.e. will it do more harm than good?). And of course, if they've already given up on the company and management generally, then they should just move on to somewhere where they can feel good about both vs blogging about it publically or hiding behind "well, it sucks but I like my immediate group".

Come on the real reason that he posted this rather than just mailing it to Jeff Raikes is he has fallen victim to the delusional blogger self-importance disease. This is where they become convinced that everything should be blogged about and that normal (and often private) communication channels are inappropopriate.

You know, there are good reasons why programmers should never somehow think they are automatically MBA's or Lawyers. Royalty-free? Why? Just give away the keys to the kingdom? What you get in return? Non-Exclusive? In things legal, nothing is EVER non-exclusive, always exceptions, time limits and extenuating circumstances. Perpetually? That sure ties your hands, as who knows what the future holds? This makes overall zero economic sense, and I suspect, as with most of the blog dandruff of late, the Exec's will just be amused, and move on. Make good formats, closed as such may be; market share is it's own standard. Case by case...

Fundamental Shift? Eh? So the Mailroom Clerk can tell the Doctor which medicines to prescribe? Do be serious. It's just a buncha programmers with a newfound CMS megaphones playing God and barking at the Moon. Pat them on the head, say nice doggie, and give them a treat. Don't take them too seriously, they aren't representive of the whole.

Another useful thing that MS could do would be to document how to implement text converters. That would make it possible to simply plug into Office's various File Open and Save As dialogs, and handle 'foreign' documents directly in Word.

MS Office could easily add the ability to read and write OpenDocument formats. This would not require "Microsoft to shackle itself to a standards body", but would only require MS Office to add some options in the Open and SaveAs dialogs. The only reason I can think of that they won't do this, is because they're not satisfied with providing successful software, but are driven to rule the world and stamp out all competition, by any means necessary, even if that means annoying customers.

Christopher: If it's such a terrible idea, how come Microsoft is doing precisely this for its new XML formats? Why does Adobe do it for PDF? This notion that file formats are "the keys to the kingdom" is outdated.

Jonathan: OK so you add some options to the Open and Save dialog...what about the code to actually implement this? Who writes and tests that? The UI design of this is not the gating factor here.

- adam

I am not sure there is such a thing as delusional blogger self-importance disease. When I do test software, if I have a bug to report, I report it. I don't loose my time thinking that a tester smarter than me already found it and reported it. Nor do I think a developer smarter than me coded the feature and I must be crazy to think it is broken.

Classical Office formats are about to become obsolete, and there is no real business reason to keep them in obscurity (I can imagine possible security reasons, but I am not sure they exist). There is a real business case in opening them, though.

Actually, I have similar feelings about Microsoft not including MFC and ATL in Visual C++ Express, but then, I don’t work for the company...

Can you imagine buying a Verison phone and not be able to talk to someone with a land-line or Cellular-One phone?

I think there is a real underestimation of how much more savy consumers are getting wrt computers.

MadMoney Kramer says, "SELL"

If Microsoft's Office suite is as good as advertised, you have no fear in adding an option of SAVE AS->OpenDocument. I gather being "tied" to and open standard is just not in Microsoft's business model? Does Microsoft consider the bad image it gets from being so closed and restricted? I mean, its product is suppose to serve the user, Microsoft's customer, by giving the user a choice.

Responding to Eduardo here:

Posted by: Eduardo at September 9, 2005 07:03 PM

Adam, regarding licensing of Office formats - have you read through this letter? http://www.microsoft.com/office/xml/janletter.mspx ?

Specifically, it states that:

• The technical documentation is available on the Internet for anyone to copy and read
• The schemas are based on the W3C XML standard
• The license is royalty-free
• The license is perpetual
• The license is very brief and available to everyone

No dice.

It's very brief, but it disallows the GPL and programs that SAVE the documents as something else (not just OPEN and READ like Jean says it can do), so really all you can do is open and read. You also can't make any modifications to how it saves the documents (You need to implement it precisely, no embrace and extend).

I assume "print" will make it in there as well shortly.

I'm glad I re-read this, because I was going to comment about how there is a Word Viewer, which means I was completely missing the point. But I think you are right on when talking about formats and being able to have them available in the future in case there wasn't an application to use.

The idea behind having an open format is good, but there is difficulty in pursuing a solution to this. Everything has its pro's and con's, I guess it just depends on what works best for the situation. Most of the time it seems like people are too eager to go with an idea without even having a test solution.

I've seen that happen all too often and then having to return back to how things were done before, essentially returning to the same problem. Trial and error works good at certain times, but playing around with that ends up costing in the end, both financially and time spent. I wouldn't be surprised if Massachusetts went back to how things were being done. That would be a shame to see a failure like that depending on the time and money they put into it. Only time will tell though.

Hi, I don't understand when you say "and most of the concerns come from others being able to write your format"

What concerns?