OT [Fwd: [DISCUSS] Microsoft limits XML in Office 2003]

[Hechler Family]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[DISCUSS] Microsoft limits XML in Office 2003
Date: 	14 Apr 2003 15:24:55 -0500
From: 	Scott Granneman <scott@granneman.com>
Reply-To: 	discuss@sluug.org
To: 	SLUUG Discuss <discuss@sluug.org>
CC: 	StlWebDev List <stlwebdev@stlwebdev.org>



Remember how MSFT promised that XML was going to be a big new feature in
the upcoming version of Office? And how data interoperability was their
new focus? 

It was all lies.

Here's the relevant bits. To read the full story, check out:
http://news.com.com/2100-1012-996528.html?tag=lh

This b.s. makes me as angry at them as I've ever been. But I should have
known better than to believe what they promised. After all, saying one
thing and doing another -- no matter who they screw -- is their m.o.

Scott

=============

Microsoft limits XML in Office 2003: "A distinction that Microsoft is
making between professional and standard versions of Office 2003 means
that many customers may not get all the features they've been expecting,
including broad support for Web services. 

For more than a year, Microsoft has touted Office 2003's support for
Extensible Markup Language (XML), a highly anticipated new feature of
the productivity suite. But Microsoft now plans to fully deliver the
feature only in the two high-end versions of the product, one of which
will be available only to businesses subscribing to Microsoft's
volume-licensing program. 

Two other features also are similarly restricted: the document
protection technology Windows Rights Management Services (RMS), and
Excel List, a feature for improving analysis of data lists. Microsoft
plans to deliver the three features only in the Enterprise and
Professional versions of Office 2003, the company confirmed late
Thursday. 

At no time during two phases of testing, one in October and another in
March, did Microsoft make it widely known that XML support would not be
available in all versions of Office 2003. The most recent beta test
version, available to an estimated half-million testers, delivers the
full XML feature set promised by Microsoft. ... 

XML is fast emerging as the preferred means of formatting data delivered
in back-end business processes or Web services. But unlike HTML
(Hypertext Markup Language) tags, which are universal, XML tags can be
customized by developers and so need to be communicated to the software
that reads them. The XML tags that define the elements of a document are
collectively called a schema. Microsoft has yet to disclose the
proprietary dialect--or underlying schema--of the XML used in Office
2003. ... 

But analysts contend that WordML's compliance with industry standards is
a misnomer. Because the schema isn't fully documented, people who want
to edit files created in Office 2003 will only be able to do that with
Office itself, as before. Text in Office 2003 files stored in XML format
might be viewable in other desktop programs, but all document formatting
would be lost and most other files would be unreadable. 

Such a move could also hamper data exchange with competing desktop
productivity software that recognizes XML, such as Corel's WordPerfect
or Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, say analysts and competitors. 

"From the beginning, there was a question whether Microsoft was going to
buy in completely to XML," said Technology Business Research analyst Bob
Sutherland. "Microsoft is often trying to spin their message, and they
want to appear as if they buy into (open) standards. But they always put
in the proprietary hooks somewhere in the final release of the product."
... 

"We've never believed that Microsoft would truly make their XML format
interoperable," said Gregg Nicholas, a technology manager from Berrien
County, Mich. Microsoft's "standard operating procedure with standards
seems to be embrace, extend and exterminate. Despite the hype from their
public relations department, I've seen no reason to believe that they
would act any differently with XML.""

-- 
R. Scott Granneman
scott@granneman.com ~ www.granneman.com
Join GranneNotes! Information at www.granneman.com
Read my blog at http://radio.weblogs.com/0100530

"For some reason, we don't read about mobs of atheists stoning and burning alive human beings who do not share their non-beliefs. So far, no agnostics have blown themselves up in discos, taking someone's children with them. No scientific determinists have been kidnapped and murdered by supporters of chaos theory. Moral relativists are not organizing militias for the purpose of putting people in jail for possession of the Ten Commandments; nor are agnostics firing rockets at pantheists from helicopter gunships."
      ---John Maclachlan Gray

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-- 
Duaine Hechler
Piano, Player Piano, Organ, Pump Organ
Tuning, Servicing & Rebuilding
Associate Member of the Piano Technicians Guild
Reed Organ Society Member
Florissant, MO
(314) 838-5587
dahechler@charter.net