Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday will announce XDocs, the working code name for the latest addition to its Office desktop productivity family. Steve Ballmer, CEO of the Redmond, Wash., software company, will use the Gartner ITxpo in Orlando, Fla., to announce this latest Office application. Microsoft officials are promoting XDocs as a smart client like Office. “Think of it as a hybrid information gathering tool for organizations that blends the benefits and richness of a traditional word processing program with the data capturing ability and rigor of a forms package into the XDocs templates,” Scott Bishop, an Office product manager, told eWEEK.
Microsoft Adds XDocs to Office Family
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’m confused, how is XDocs different from Office 11? Hybrid information gathering tool? Argh… That’s *real* descriptive. Anybody have any guesses to what it _really_ is?
http://www.microsoft.com/office/xdocs/default.asp
interesting i just read about a MS research topic called data mining.. interesting …
OHHHHHHH, they finaly figured out the wonderful technology of FRAMES!!!!
Pt…I went to Microsoft’s site…and could they be any more vague!?!?!
A bundle consisting of a schema editor, forms editor, and server module… my first reaction is BFD. Client-server forms packages have been around for many years (Lotus Notes for example), but I guess Microsoft’s marketing clout will make theirs a winner. By analogy, there were many decent PC database products 8-10 years ago, many of them from Borland 🙂 but after Microsoft bundled Access into Office the game pretty much ended.
so it’s a fancy database front-end that can import data from multiple sources?
Yes “just that”. Kinda useful, don’t you think? I wish people at least give some credit to Ms. I mean, I haven’t seen a better app for Linux (or Mac) that does the same and *integrates* to your office applications.
Lotus notes can do this. We do it here where i work. Or lotus database forms tie to a SQLserver backend and the data is put into the databasea spreadsheets and doc files.
i could find a better job
its basically an xml editor
thats why its so vague, the business cases were unknown
Forms?! Forms?! That’s there big break through? They figured out that companies use forms! And wow! Backed with a DB! Holy bannanas, Batman, I’ve never seen anything that had a database behind it.
Come on!! I’ve been using HTML forms for 4 years now… To collect customer data, and redistribute it to the proper people. And you know what else? The most current form is always availble on my webserver!
I have no problem giving credit where it’s due, but doesn’t this sound similar to OSX’s address book, which claims(excerpt from <a href=”http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/addressbook.html“>here</a&…):
“The new system-wide Address Book enhances the power and usefulness of other apps in your system and other devices connected to it in the bargain with flexible and functional contact management.”
I don’t think that XDocs has much to do with Apple’s addressbook.
My problem is that you guys do not react the same for all companies/developers. If that XDocs was created by a company for Linux or Apple, you wouldn’t write all that sarcastic messages over here. But if it is from Microsoft, you all start the trolling like pigs left out of the sack.
Please be more fair to development teams. If you are going to be sarcastic to Microsoft for doing a good thing (“delivering a new tool for Office”), be the same for Linux apps and Apple.
All I did was suggest that “BFD Docs” might be a more appropriate name than XDocs
That type of product has been around for years, from many different vendors, although not as part of Microsoft Office.
That, and the fact that this is the first substantial addition to Office in years, and the article says that 400 full-time developers worked for several years on a predecessor project. That’s a huge amount of resources.
Basically it looks like a GUI to make forms that plug into a DB. Somewhat like what many peoples do with PHP/PERL/ASP with their SQL database of choice, except that this tool is more point’n clic (which must be done at the cost of less control)
Not exactly a revolution…
Why were you expecting a revolution?
The underlying engine seems to be equivalent to the XUL stuff mozilla.org has implemented. Add to that wizards that help you create forms and a lot of templates and you get XDocs?
This is an EXTREMELY useful tool. I can think of about 100 real world uses for this app TODAY. In fact, as we speak, I am writing a web app to do the exact same thing.
If there were an office app that could connect to the database and populate forms, make spreadsheets, documents, etc, and it didn’t require a programmer to change the schema, it would be HUGE.
Good job Microsoft.
Now why can’t someone make an Access-like front-end for MySQL?
> NOw why can’t someone make an Acess-like front-end to MySQL?
Beats me. The only decent Frontend (mysqlfront) is windows-based.
XDocs: Hmm .. doesn’t that sound like the X in X Server?? Per “Lindows”, someone should take MS to court!
>>Now why can’t someone make an Access-like front-end for MySQL?
http://www.thekompany.com/products/rekall/
(though not limited to MySQL)
“Now why can’t someone make an Access-like front-end for MySQL? ”
Now you’re the one thats sucks.
Why would you want to give up all the simplicity (read straight-forwardness) and control that an Access type front-end would take from you?
And Eugenia, I’m disappointed. By posting this article, you’re making an issue. Had Lotus done it, it would not have been mentioned. If an Open source project had just released a compairiable product, we would not be discussing it. So don’t give me crap about bashing Microsoft, and tell us that we are making an issue of it only because its from Microsoft. You made it an issue.
Chris, we do try to report on all important things. And Microsoft and their products are important. Heck, they got 94% of the market. Therefore, they WILL get more coverage than Lotus Notes or myXDocs4Linux.
As for Rekall, I can’t read anywhere on their site that it can create new databases, change relationships, change the databases’ tables and fields etc. If it can’t do that, it is NOT a worthy Access-like product, but simply a frontend to represent existing data and maybe update data. This is not enough to be called “Access-like”.
my comment wasn’t meant to be sarcastic or critical. I was simply trying to figure it out….
i think it’s very useful, and i do give credit to MS when they do something nice….which i think this is. yes, you can do these thigs in other ways, ways that may be arguably better or more powerful….but this makes it EASY. and to inegrate it with office…pretty smart too.
i’ll never use it, but they are doing some good things. they just do some very, very bad things too.
“Chris, we do try to report on all important things. And Microsoft and their products are important. Heck, they got 94% of the market. Therefore, they WILL get more coverage than Lotus Notes or myXDocs4Linux.”
This is exactly WHY they have 94%. Because of journalism that refuses to pay equal attention to less prominant or prolific products/companies. It is a great disservice to readers and products to focus on one company soley because it has a dominant position.
In general, please don’t report on topics just because they come from a position of market-dominance. Report on anything that is relevant to improvements, changes or inventions in computing technology, regardless of the names involved.
Focusing on Microsoft makes it easy for people to believe that Microsoft is the only company worth paying attention to (“Well, OSNews.com didn’t mention it, so why should I care?”). If there are other things out there that are similar to, or more original than, a Microsoft product, pay it the respect it deserves. I, for one reader, would like to read about it.
I’m not saying this is definitely the case here (I don’t know much about databases because I don’t care to). I am simply reacting to your comment, as quoted above.
At work we always use excel to make forms 🙂
That’s a nice progam, even the text import filter is a lot
better then the similar one in access
All I meant to imply is that it’s weak if we can’t collectively admit this is a good idea, even if it’s not too complex or revolutionary.
That’s the problem with geeks, sometimes, they can’t appreciate the value of putting something complex into the regular Joe’s grasp.
Sheesh.
Fist off, well said Jace! I was going to say the exact same thing, but you said it better than I would
XDocs is not as important as for example gst-editor or actually the whole gstream framework, which is a real breakthrough for linux when it comes to media. Still I can’t find a single article about it when I search OSNews.
Perhaps you’ve just missed it Eugenia, so I’ll give you a link here and now http://www.gstreamer.net
and the gst-editor is at http://www.gstreamer.net/apps/gst-editor/
(gstreamer was just an example, there are several important projects out there but I can’t cover them all in this post
)
That said, I think that XDocs looks very nice. My fear is though, that it’s like all the other MS-apps that I’ve tried; it looks good on paper but it’s not that good in real life.
But I think it’s nice of MS to actually do something that uses the benefits of XML (which is basically metadata). Sure you can save to XML in Word, but that XML format they use is pretty much useless, it has lots of information about how things should look instead of describing what things are. Kinda destroys the purpose of XML as a document format.
But yeah, XDocs as an idea is nice. I had thought about making a similar app for BeOS a while ago, but I choose to focus on other things.
Finally Office users will be able to save their data into a usable and relevant format, and even exchange data with non-Office users in a good way. That is excellent MS! (no sarcasm actually)
That’s the problem with geeks, sometimes, they can’t appreciate the value of putting something complex into the regular Joe’s grasp.
And you really don’t know why? It puts the geeks out of job that’s why
If Joe can do what the geek used to do, add to that with more efficiency at a lower cost. Is there then a reason to have the little old geek around anymore?
another thing is that Joe tends to have a slight ignorance about technical stuff(much thanks to MS), which means that he often messes things up, and the geek has to come and clean things up for him. Now putting some serious “not to be messed with” technology in the hands of Joe is the geeks worst nightmare
I dont get why they dont come out and say what the new product really is. We have gotten about ten diffrent opinions on what the program really is, but I dont think anyone knows for sure. I dont like that marketing style.
Interesting idea. From my own experience I know that companies often have a bad organization for common processes (stuff like travel expenses). So far the three alternatives have been 1. low tech solutions (paper or sending files around) 2. creating a web or VB/Delphi tool for this, which is relatively expensive and 3. integrate it into the ERP system, which is the ideal solution, but very expensive.
XDocs could allow to do this very cheaply, even if the result is not as good as the ERP solution.
Either people don’t realize this or they do this knowingly. Why the hell you have to say something like, this is not a revolution, Lotus Notes was already doing this, blah blah.
I mean when an Apple announces iCal, do people come and say, hey this is not new, it is not revolution. It would sound very stupid as it sounds right now.
People, come to your senses. Think think think. Because of you guys, Microsoft become more and more credible. When I think about any news recently about Microsoft, it is quite hard to find one which is not a distortion, a lie and not a part of an agenda to make Microsoft look like an evil company.
XDocs is an application which adds value to Microsoft’s Office business. That’s it. There may not be something revolutionary about, it doesn’t have to be revolutionary.
why is this OS news?
is XDox an operating system?
does this announcement of an application really need to be posted on a site that is about operating systems.
The question is if the marketing dep even knows what it is
I agree with you, that kind of marketing does not belong in this world. What’s wrong with being true and honest for a change? Oh wait, that might actually burst the bubble, people won’t think that they are buying dreams anymore, they are suddenly buying solutions, and how boring that would be.
I see a slight difference between freeware/shareware devs on BeOS and on Windows in how they describe their apps. BeOS apps tend to “work as advertised” more often than Windows apps. Take a peek at download.com’s windows section read the descriptions and try the apps, then do the same thing at bebits.com and you will realise that the BeOS devs are often more honest(well, mariux is an exception
). And no, this is not a flamebait, and I’m not saying that BeOS is better than Windows, it was just a little observation of mine 
I think it’s the same for linux, only that they tend to have a little more technical descriptions.
Jace I believe you are the one who claimed to read court papers, although you didn’t read or didn’t understand them.
Your following comments suggest that you are accusing OSNews for helping Microsoft to dominate the computer industry.
This is exactly WHY they have 94%. Because of journalism that refuses to pay equal attention to less prominant or prolific products/companies. It is a great disservice to readers and products to focus on one company soley because it has a dominant position.
In general, please don’t report on topics just because they come from a position of market-dominance. Report on anything that is relevant to improvements, changes or inventions in computing technology, regardless of the names involved.
Focusing on Microsoft makes it easy for people to believe that Microsoft is the only company worth paying attention to (“Well, OSNews.com didn’t mention it, so why should I care?”). If there are other things out there that are similar to, or more original than, a Microsoft product, pay it the respect it deserves. I, for one reader, would like to read about it.
I’m not saying this is definitely the case here (I don’t know much about databases because I don’t care to). I am simply reacting to your comment, as quoted above.
XDocs is an improvement to Office suite so according to your criteria this news still worth to report in this site.
Second the focus on Microsoft is not a positive one, it is a negative one usually and the news about Microsoft on many sites are done to hurt Microsoft not to help them. Think about manys security news against Microsoft, which turn out to be highly distorted news. Not making news about Microsoft products would actually help Microsoft a lot. Don’t forget that some of those news help Microsoft competitors to gain some few percentages on the market.
Brad, this question has been answered about a thousand times by now. OSnews is not just about operating systems but also about new technology and stuff that geeks care about. At least that’s Eugenia’s description
However, you might want to question the importance of mentioning this here, since it’s going to be posted on pretty much every computing-news site anyway.
you know the old saying “Any publicity is good publicity”? This is true in many cases, and actually MS is one of them. People will forget about the security issues the next day(unless they are directly affected by them), but the name Microsoft will be forever etched into their braincells. And MS really likes this kind of marketing anyway. I think the name “Microsoft” is written no less than three times in the XP bootscreen. Talk about brainwashing.
If people see a brand name all over the place they will recognize it the next time they go shopping and will most likely buy that product over some lesser known one.
Its called Rekall, go to http://www.kompany.com and buy it for about $70 and free updates for life, I did. WIndows version as well as Linux.
BradC, I am that close from moding down your comment. READ our posting rules about the “why is this posted here” and read also here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=363
It is posted here because *I* found it interesting. OSNews is MY hobby and it IS NOT about operaring systems only. It is about interesting geek and technology stuff. I am not taking orders on how to carry out my hobby by anyone.
If a story is not interest you, just pass it by. It is as simple as that.
>Its called Rekall, go to http://www.kompany.com and
Read my previous message about Rekall. Apparently does not do as much as Access can do in a visual way, in regards on how to control the database itself.
heh
MS’s next forey, Mission critical datacenter networking settings for office.
then,
point and click programming :-p
Yes, I agree with you it cannot do everything Access can do. It is just a front end. You can do a lot of things with it, but that does not include making a database.
Many business use Access as a front end to MS SQL and I have heard it used with Oracle. In those cases Access is also just a front end to a real database.
Rekall is a Linux alternative in these cases, where it is being used as a front end. There are a lot of database apps where the program is really just a series of database forms and reports connected to a big database. I am not saying that Rekall is as powerful as Access in this case (It is still immature) just that it is an alternative. I can’t remember but I think you can download the source as well.
P.S. The link I posted was wrong. I see someone else posted the correct link though anyway.
then,
point and click programming :-p
http://clickeam.com/
I think phpmyadmin is a good start to a mysql front end. Unfortuately it’s written in PHP, but it can do just about anything with MySQl. I think this could be easily modified into an excelent, easy to use front end for mysql. But it would need to be ported to another language, PHP is brilliant, don’t get me wrong, but AFAIK you need apache to run it.
Anyone thought about that??
My problem is that you guys do not react the same for all companies/developers. If that XDocs was created by a company for Linux or Apple, you wouldn’t write all that sarcastic messages over here.
I, for one, don’t really have anything to say one way or another regarding this product because I have no idea why I should care about it. It’s too vague, and the parts that aren’t vague have been around in other products for many years. Why is this new product any more important or useful than that graphics program (that completely sucked) which was included in Office 2000? I don’t mean to be negative about anything (except for that sucky graphics program anyway); just an observation.
I think The reason people complain about MS so much may just be due to their negative feelings towards that particular company. Perhaps it’s hard to talk the same about Apple and Linux because people actually like those companies/products and actually hate Microsoft.
I think if people are always harping on Microsoft, then perhaps you should place the onus on Microsoft to stop pissing off their customers and other members of the computing community; not the customers or patrons of OSNews. Besides, if you can’t complain about companies that you don’t like, what’s the point of living?
you all start the trolling like pigs left out of the sack.
My uncle had a farm and I believe he left his pigs out of the proverbial sack all the time; probably still does. I haven’t seen any of them trolling here though. I guess they did troll when my cousin hit the male pigs in the wedding tackle with a 1 X 8 pine plank for biting him, but that was years ago. I’m sure they are over it by now.
Backdoor city..
Yeah.. changes made to your docs as you use them!
It’s really ballmer’s “monkeyboy” self caracature and ego flatulence.
h4><0r c|+y
data mining? oh, yeah. someone can spoof a database and they can say “we made it possible” well, let’s see how many msft backdoors are included. Don’t store your data on msft, it is not safe kiddies!
They have been “data coagulating” for a while. They heard about Datawing, and decided the guy wouldn’t sell the idea to them, and open specs is not their strong point.
Like I said, it’s your money. Their idea of data mining is DATA STEALING, and well, that’s illegal, now isn’t it?
The <ahem> pirates of sillycon valley.
we know the spiel.
Book em, Dano0!
Eugenia,
I have been using Linux for many years, but recently had to install this Windows machine for some work I’m doing. I have never had a problem with OSNews in Mozilla or Opera under Linux, but your site crashes my browser almost every time I visit OSNews under Windows XP. All I have to do is click on a few links and my browser crashes.
I would blame this on Windows XP, but it ONLY happens when I visit your site; and I visit many sites.
Just thought I’d let you know.
Ja ne.
If you must use microsoft’s operating system, at least get a good piece of office software. Get GoBe PROductive and work like a pro!
Forget this one man owns everything carp.
Iconoclast, I know. This is a Mozilla 1.1x bug introduced a few weeks ago and I can’t do anything about it, because my Mozilla does not crash on WinXP. Please file a bug report on the Mozilla site.
Download mozilla 1.2. I had a LOT of problems with 1.0 and 1.1,
but 1.2 hasn’t crashed once.
linux_baby: XDocs: Hmm .. doesn’t that sound like the X in X Server?? Per “Lindows”, someone should take MS to court!
Perhaps it is a codename? As in no the brand name, the name they tell their customers. If Lindows was a codename, by golly I would have supported them.
Brad C.: http://www.thekompany.com/products/rekall/
(though not limited to MySQL)
I though it was said front end something a like Access….
Brad C.: why is this OS news?
is XDox an operating system?
I’m quite suprised this isn’t moderated down…. have you read the rules yet buddy? (Besides, there are plenty of non-OS news today, by bash this one?)
rain: People will forget about the security issues the next day(unless they are directly affected by them), but the name Microsoft will be forever etched into their braincells.
Well, I can’t tell you how many people (all of them running a company network) have asked me about Linux and asked me to teach them about Linux (I decline, I not no hoot about networking, Windows or Linux). None of them got infected by any viruses, none of them get affected by every security hole. But why? Because the press already potrays Linux=good, Windows=bad (In terms of security of course) 🙂
Marco Alanen: Download mozilla 1.2. I had a LOT of problems with 1.0 and 1.1,
but 1.2 hasn’t crashed once.
That’s eactly what was said when 1.0 and 1.1 came out. But I’ll stick to 1.0 (which BTW gonna be the browser of choice when I transfer all my stuff from Opera, if Opera 7.0 sucks). I’ll skip Mozilla builds from now on and watch the Phoenix ones…
I think The reason people complain about MS so much may just be due to their negative feelings towards that particular company. Perhaps it’s hard to talk the same about Apple and Linux because people actually like those companies/products and actually hate Microsoft.
Well hating a company doesn’t give you the right to lie about it, distort facts about it. Furthermore, you need to understand that some of the reasons why people hate Microsoft are based on false claims. They are simply not true. Over and over again we seee this, as in the case where you blame Windows XP for Mozilla’s bug.
I think if people are always harping on Microsoft, then perhaps you should place the onus on Microsoft to stop pissing off their customers and other members of the computing community; not the customers or patrons of OSNews. Besides, if you can’t complain about companies that you don’t like, what’s the point of living?
Who is pissing off here? Microsoft or the person who blames Windows XP for another program’s fault and misinforming other users causing them to think that Windows XP may be buggy.
re:rain
I don’t remember you are mentioning “Any publicity is good publicity”? on other negative Microsoft news. It is really not the press that created Microsoft, it is the Microsoft which created its brand. If Microsoft was an emerging company and you were hearing Microsoft news all over the place, you could be right, but Microsoft is a big brand, they have lots of advertisement dollars, they don’t need press news. Press need them to make news. Check out Cnet, even though there is no need for news they put negative news about Microsoft, even it is a speculation, even it is something not there yet. They just come up with news, they take a comment of an official and put the Microsoft name on the news, as if Microsoft officially says what Microsoft official says. These news help a lot to break up the Microsoft, since I am sure judges read some of these news. Also these news cause people to switch to other operating systems, they cause people not to upgrade to a higher version of Microsoft product, even the free ones. So except this news, which is not negative, all the publicity Microsoft gets is bad one, and those news hurt their bottom line.
Seems to work fine under Phoenix 0.2 on Win2k and XP, though I don’t remember which Mozilla code base they’re using.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, bu the reason I would ridicule this is that the announcement makes it clear that no one at Microsoft has any idea what XDocs is. If they knew what it was, they’d explain it, rather than spouting off buzzwords. This may work well in big business, but I just don’t like it.
The reason something like this coming from Apple wouldn’t be ridiculed is that Apple designs software to address a problem. There’s a clear goal and purpose to their products and it can be explained in plain language.
Similarly, if it came out for some other Unix, there’s a good chance it was designed and created with a purpose in mind.
Microsoft, on the other hand, slaps things together, often shoddily, then has to look for or create a problem their application solves. This is why their PR is awkward, vague and confusing. Essentially it boils down to: Microsoft doesn’t have a vision.
No, padding their revenue stream doesn’t count as a vision.
Well hating a company doesn’t give you the right to lie about it, distort facts about it. Furthermore, you need to understand that some of the reasons why people hate Microsoft are based on false claims. They are simply not true. Over and over again we seee this, as in the case where you blame Windows XP for Mozilla’s bug.
Why don’t you go back and actually read my post wingnut? I didn’t blame anything on anyone. I simply outlined the problem as it is occuring (mozilla doesn’t crash under Linux but it does under Windows XP and it only crashes when I visit OSNews); and I only mentioned it because it had just happened again as I was reading this thread.
I don’t recall blaming anybody or anything. Obviously there’s a problem and I wanted to bring in up with Eugenia since it happens with her site. Obviously there is a bug somewhere, so I simply brought it up with the owner of the site with which I can reproduce the bug. I found her response to my statement informative and highly useful and I am very glad she made it. I found yours to be completely irrelevant and gay (meaning stupid, not homosexual).
Who is pissing off here?
You.
Microsoft or the person who blames Windows XP for another program’s fault and misinforming other users causing them to think that Windows XP may be buggy.
Can you even read? I didn’t blame Windows XP for anything. I simply said, “I would blame Windows XP…”, since I don’t have the problem under Linux using the same browser, “…but it only happens when I visit your site…”
Why don’t you quit trying to transmogrify my posts to fit your perverse need for the perfect anti-Microsoft post at which you can unfurl your self-righteous, “I love Microsoft” speech.
Sorry to be so irascible about a misconstrued reply to my posts, but today I am.
Nicely said, Chris
. Although, this marketing problem is not just a problem at Microsoft, its a problem for alot of big tech compaines. They dumb down their sales lit so non-techincal managers and execs can pretend to understand it…
Checkout this Dilbert cartoon for a perfect example:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert2002114…
You throw around a bunch buzz words, and hope that they fall into some type of coherent order that makes the product sound cool…
Maybe Microsoft will ‘create a need’ with there next OS for a program like this… I’ll stick to create web-based applications to do the same thing… Unless they release more details that make it sound wonderful, its not news worthy.
Iconoclast , you said it is ok to say anything against Microsoft, because people hate Microsoft, and I said you may hate Microsoft, but it is not ethical to say something not true, a lie, a distortion. I didn’t say you specifically said something against Microsoft, but I did give your conclusion about Windows XP as an example of poor reasoning against Microsoft.
The version of Mozilla for Windows XP and for Linux are not exactly same. There could be some few changes which may cause bugs.
So please read what you said and then understand what I said.
By the way I don’t love Microsoft. That’s really stupid.
Actually, I think that people have the right to say, feel, think and believe anything they want. If that weren’t true we wouldn’t have politics.
I didn’t say you specifically said something against Microsoft, but I did give your conclusion about Windows XP as an example of poor reasoning against Microsoft.
My interpretation of your following two sentences is that you did, in fact, specifically state that I was giving misleading information regarding the stability of Windows XP. Which I of course did not.
Over and over again we seee this, as in the case where you blame Windows XP for Mozilla’s bug.
Who is pissing off here? Microsoft or the person who blames Windows XP for another program’s fault and misinforming other users causing them to think that Windows XP may be buggy.
If you read my post to Eugenia, you can clearly see that I am not even remotely inferring that Windows XP was to blame. In fact, the only invalid conclusion that I fathom one could reach regarding my post, is that I was blaming OSNews for this instability; which I was not.
To address this comment, “Iconoclast , you said it is ok to say anything against Microsoft, because people hate Microsoft…”, let me offer the following:
First of all, that “:)” at the end of the sentence in my original post is a token which designates that I was being facetious.
More importantly, what I actually said was perhaps people are so negatively vocal regarding Microsoft because they hate Microsoft. Perhaps they can’t treat Linux, Apple, etc., products with the same irreverance because they actually like the makers of those products. I think this is a fairly valid statement.
Then I offered as a suggestion to Eugenia, that instead of always viewing the people who speak negatively regarding MS as jerks and what not, she take a look at Microsoft and their products, and ponder some of the reasons many of their customers feel hatred towards them. Since there are many people who indeed hate Microsoft and their products, perhaps it would be a valid exercise to evaluate the reasons behind those opinions, instead of simply dismissing them.
I didn’t say that it was okay to say anything you want against Microsoft because you hate them (although I think everyone has the right to their opinions; no matter how unpopular they may be), what I said was that perhaps Eugenia should look at Microsoft as part of the problem instead of always defending them and dismissing anyone who has a negative comment regarding them. Therefore, I feel the onus should be placed on Microsoft, since they are the ones upsetting their customers, not the customers with legitimate complaints.
You are saying things way different than what I am discussing.
I didn’t say people shouldn’t talk about Microsoft, shouldn’t say anything against Microsoft, or whatever. Nobody said that. What I did say is that nobody should lie about Microsoft to make them seem like an evil company. There is a big difference. You may believe that people should be able to lie to distort facts, although from the standpoint of freespeech this is totally fine, for etchical reasons I don’t approve that. Again don’t try to confuse these two different things. I would like to have the right to lie about Microsoft, but I wouldn’t lie because I consider it to be unethical. Anyway, if you still think that I am against freespeech, that’s fine, you have the right to thin that way, as you have the right to accuse Windows XP for the Mozilla bug.
Regarding people who speak against Microsoft as jerks, I think you are totally off point. We have logics, we can understand who is jerk or not. It is not about being against Microsoft as you try to show it to be. If you come and accuse Windows XP for Mozilla bug, obviously I would think that you may be a jerk, not that I think, but I might think because that kind of behavior suggests that conclusion. It has nothing to do with being a Microsoft customer, does it? No, definitely not.
what I said was that perhaps Eugenia should look at Microsoft as part of the problem instead of always defending them and dismissing anyone who has a negative comment regarding them.
Now this is a comment flying in the air, without any support. Which incident, person, comment you are talking about? I didn’t see any of Eugenia’s comments which defend Microsoft. Defending is a strong word.
Therefore, I feel the onus should be placed on Microsoft, since they are the ones upsetting their customers, not the customers with legitimate complaints.
Which complaints you are talking about? The one which accuses Windows XP for Mozilla’s bug, or another one. How does Microsoft upset their customers? What does that mean? How, when, what?
If I were to make any final comment like you I would say,
if a person has hatred towards a company, he/she should not try to ruin the business of the company by lying about its products in the public forums because at the end he/she will really hurt other innocent customers by confusing their minds. If the person hates the company instead of writing false claims about its products he/she should try to cure his/her hate.
Cool down. Bashing other people (that previously was on “our” side, BTW) doesn’t help anybody. Cool down, have a cold drink, take your prozac, take a nap, come back here…. (LOL, kidding about the prozac)
Sergio, I cannot fathom what you are talking about or what your point even is. It’s like you are responding to me, but we are not even remotely having the same discussion. Are you even reading my posts, or are you getting all defensive before hand and replying with zeal based on the first four or five words? Let me try and keep my paragraphs small so that my concepts and ideas cannot be misconstrued by you any longer.
You seem to think that I said lying about Microsoft is fine. I NEVER said any such thing; except perhaps in obvious jest. Personally, I think that lying about anything is a sign of weakness and lack of character; but that’s just me.
You also seem to think that everyone who says anything negative against Microsoft or Windows XP is a liar. Again, this is your mistake. There are plenty of problems with Windows and the applications that run on top of it to warrant negative comments and criticism.
You also keep saying that I blamed Windows XP for a bug in Mozilla. I NEVER said any such thing. Anyone with the ability to read could see that.
I think that’s all the inaccuracies you have propegated regarding my posts. Do you see why you are wrong in what you are saying about my posts? Can you see that you are mistaken? You are upset with people for, in your perception, lying about Microsoft. Can you understand why I’m mildly upset with you for being very inaccurate regarding me and my posts?
re rajan: I am cool
Really.
re Iconoclast: “You also seem to think that everyone who says anything negative against Microsoft or Windows XP is a liar”. This conclusion looks like your Windows XP bug conclusion. I am pretty sure you didn’t “mean” that, just as you didn’t mean to accuse Windows XP for Mozilla’s bug. Needless to say that I don’t think that way, but your posts seem to make a false claim first, and then deny it.
re Rajan: I am cool and I was cool. I am just arguing, nothing more.
re Iconoclast: “You also seem to think that everyone who says anything negative against Microsoft or Windows XP is a liar. Again, this is your mistake.”
Who is distorting posts here. This conclusion looks like accusing XP for Mozilla bug. Isn’t it or you are knowingly saying that.
I think that’s all the inaccuracies you have propegated regarding my posts
Look above, that’s your understanding of my posts. Then reread what you have written and what I have written. I could have understood the Windows XP thing, but saying that I am accusing everybody who is negative about Microsoft of being a liar is a little bit stupid. Sorry not a little bit, but a lot.
I’m not concerned about everyone, I am only concerned with you dragging drastically incorrect meanings out of my posts and then, instead of replying to what I actually said, commenting on your own delusional fantasies and blaming me for them.
This conclusion looks like your Windows XP bug conclusion.
Sergio, I usually try not to insult or attack people directly, but are you inconceivably dense? Why in the hell do you keep bringing this up with me? Go reply and “argue” with yourself if you think it is such a stupid statement, since you are the only one that has ever said it!
I am cool and I was cool. I am just arguing, nothing more.
Here’s a hot tip. When you argue, at least try and be on the same page as the person you are arguing with; otherwise you are NOT arguing. If you are indeed doing anything at all, it is unceasingly defecating inaccurate nonsense. I don’t think you are lying, since you haven’t demonstrated the level of cognition necessary to do so.
Thanks for your comments about my cognition ability. That shows your level.
Anyway please don’t be personal here. This is a public forum only, there is no need to attack people’s personalities or dignities.
Throughout the argument I didn’t attack your personality, I always stick with the subject, the comments, the things you said and I said. Everybody here are smart I believe, even the ones who I believe say wrong things.
Your final post just showed me that it doesn’t worth to discuss with you.
Well Sergio, I don’t like getting personal. But you are not arguing with me. You are making crap up that I never said and then arguing with yourself about the dumb things you said; only you are blaming them on me. If you want to accurately read my posts and discuss them, fine. Otherwise, I give up as it is impossible to converse with you.
I love when there are arguments between lucid and 100% non-lucid people… How someone can use language and avoid communicating anything solid or reasonable is amazing. Then again… look at marketing. I shouldn’t be amazed.
I just hate it when I’m the one that has to deal with the 100% non-lucid person. Luckilly for me, I wandered off and forgot to check back on this forum topic. Iconoclast had the unfortunate luck to be the lucid party here… Poor Iconoclast. Maddening, isn’t it?
but it sounds like a rehearsal for Microsoft Binder (?)