[ubuntu-in] [Fwd: MS, IBM fight to own office docs heats up]]

[Ravi Kumar]

Its really clear that Microsoft never gonna put whole things related to
OOXML into OpenSource and completely visible to others. The past stories of
Microsoft has already given many lessons to others.
For India, it should be a bg matter to decide. IT and computers industries
in India is growing faster than many others. Adopting MS technologies will
definitely lead us to constrained environment.

Anyway, there should be a quick vote on a site, where we Indians can put our
voices and opinion.

On 8/10/07, ramnarayan.k at gmail.com <ramnarayan.k at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> For your kind info
>
> (sorry for the cross posting)
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ganeshtk [mailto:ganeshtk at isec.ac.in]
> Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 11:44 AM
> To: lina
> Subject: MS, IBM fight to own office docs heats up
>
>
> MS, IBM fight to own office docs heats up
> 8 Aug, 2007, 0152 hrs IST,Harsimran Singh, TNN
>
>
>   HYPERLINK
> "http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2263811,prtpage-1.
> cms" \nPrint
>
>
>
> NEW DELHI: The fight between world's biggest IT companies — Microsoft
> and IBM-Sun Microsystems combine — has landed on Indian shores. Come
> September 2 and India faces a deadline: to vote for making Microsoft's
> Open Office Extensible Markup Language (OOXML) as an ISO standard for
> electronic documents or not along with 123 other countries.
>
> But the Bureau of Indian Standards, which has to submit a vote on
> India's behalf seems clueless, despite less than a month to go for the
> deadline. Microsoft and rival ODF (Open Document Format) alliance led by
> IBM & Sun Microsystems are hurling accusations at each other. A meeting
> on the issue has been called on Wednesday by BIS.
>
> Sun Microsystems country director (government strategy) Jaijit
> Bhattacharya said, "About 160 technical issues have been identified with
> OOXML. OOXML does not seem to address its design goals. Moreover, no
> Indian organisation or institution was involved in the development of
> OOXML. If we do not have any say in the development of a standard, we
> lose out on the technological sovereignty. We do not see any standalone
> implementations of OOXML by an Indian firm unlike the ISO ODF standard."
>
>
> Microsoft, however, counters Sun's claims. A meeting has been called on
> Thursday by the government in which both parties will meet. Microsoft
> India's national technology officer Vijay Kapur counters Sun, "OOXML is
> an open standard and its specifications are fully documented. There is
> no royalty charged and it works on a covenant of not to sue. It does not
> recourse to any proprietary information held by Microsoft."
>
> "OOXML's design principles are based on the old binary format which is
> known only to a selective few, decided by Microsoft. There is no clarity
> by Microsoft on the same. OOXML is also not fully interoperable as the
> full fidelity of an Open Office (ODF) document is not maintained in MS
> Word or other OOXML based word processors," adds Mr Bhattacharya.
>
> ODF advocate IIT-Delhi assistant Prof P Vigneshwara IIavarasan clarifies
> the issue, "The politics behind the battle is clear. Microsoft wants to
> retain its over 95% market share in word processing documents in the
> garb of OOXML. But Sun Micro and IBM want to grab a pie of it and
> prevent Microsoft in its plans."
>
> He, however, confirms Sun Microsystems claims that a MS Word document is
> not fully interoperable with Open Office (by ODF) and hence not an open
> standard. A converter or translator has to be downloaded to convert one
> format to another. Experts say that adopting OOXML will make India
> locked into a particular vendor.
>
>
> ****
>
>
> --
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>



-- 
-=Ravi=-
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