Microsoft intends to submit file formats for its new Office 12 applications to the European standards body ECMA International. The company hopes this will allay concern about its level of control over document formats. Update by AS: For the curious, here's a sample Office 12 file and a sample XPS file. (Note: Right click > Save As..., we're not configured to serve these files just yet.)
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Member since:2005-07-06
I don't neccesarily disagree with you here. My point is that you can't automatically assume EVERY and ALL actions by MS to be evil. Yes, their end goal is almost always to maximize profit, but that's how it is for just about any company. If a company does something that benefits the customers, then why should we be bothered if they profit from it?
Member since:2005-06-29
He's not. He's assuming their intentions to be self-serving.
In this case, the self-serving intention he's proposing is bad.
Generally speaking, when someone who controls a market does something for themselves its not going to be good for the consumer...
You see, for Microsoft to maximize profits they don't want to make the best possible product. They simply want to make the cheapest possible product which keeps people using it until whatever competition they have at the time gives up. In this product they want to use more and more powerful lock-in tools to help insure their future hold of the market.
Microsoft has little way of increasing their Office market substantially. The best thing they can do is get it to where they can run forced upgrades every 6 months (I think Quicken does forced upgrades via cutting off loved features in old versions, that's one way to do it).
Now, if you can find a motive which is beneficial to the consumer, beneficial to Microsoft, and decidedly good and logical then we'd all love to hear it. Until then, it's my opinion that this is a long term tactic in which they give us something in the short term and take it away when we all buy in. Sort of like getting no interest for 12 months only to have to pay back interest after 12 months if the debt is not already repaid.
And I do mean "sort of" like that, cause it's certainly not an exact simile.
Member since:
2005-07-02
That's called your perception. There are people, apparently you included, out there that think every single action done by a large entity has an ulterior motive and bad intentions. This simply is not true.
By definition, most (if not all) actions imply intent. Some psychologists (especially psychoanalysts) will even argue that unconscious actions are also motivated by intent.
Mind you, the ulterior motives of corporations can be quite dumb - as an organic entity, a corporation isn't always acting in its best interest. However, the main goal of a corporation is to maximize profit, and in theory all actions it takes carry this intention to a certain degree. Whether it's good or bad depends on how its actions relate to you.
In the case of Microsoft, we can safely say that the vast majority of its actions are aimed against its main competitor, i.e. Open Source, and therefore can be construed as "bad" from a F/OSS point of view. Also, because they are a monopoly, most of their actions are done to prevent competition, so one can say that the actions are "bad" if you want to have a real viable choice of MS alternatives.
Tell me, can you say with absolute certainty that, with their new file formats "opened", OpenOffice and other alternatives will be able to use the new file formats are remained GPL'd? Because if they can't, then MS is NOT opening up their file formats at all, but rather is simply carrying on with its usual anti-competitive shenanigans.