08.12.07
OOXML Deception and Spin
“Say it again and again and people will start to believe it.” (scary thoughts)
In the past month we saw Microsoft issuing a deceiving press release in South Africa, among others similar things. We also saw IBM listed as a CompTIA affiliate in an Australian report about OOXML — a mistake which is severe enough that required strong words of clarification. We also saw Microsoft asking people to change their “no” vote to “yes with comments” using the argument that the two are essentially the same (they are not). The bottom line is that Microsoft uses a great deal of disinformation in its crusade to have OOXML approved. It even turns technical debates into political ones.
The deception does not stop as we have 2 more stories which illustrate the same type of dishonest behaviour. Rob Weir takes a look at Microsoft’s unfair and unjustified use of words to hype up vendor lock-in.
Exponential growth is quite a claim. But what is the evidence? Microsoft provides this chart further down on the page, showing the growth in their “community”:
Have a look at the chart. Does honesty take the dive these days?
Meanwhile, Microsoft commissions some so-called ‘studies’ in Germany. It strives to deceive using biased and self-serving figures.
The study found that although most of the 500,000 learners of “The Google Generation” can play and surf with computers, they don’t know how to use “important business software” like Microsoft’s Word.
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My advice to Microsoft would rather be: put your OpenXML into the attic – this is where it belongs – and get your act together and support interoperability and the use of truly open formats like ODF (the Open Document Format), if you want to continue to make money. The market rules, and old-school thinking is clearly not appropriate for these times anymore.
And please: stop bugging our politicians with your so-called “studies”, even if they are often not as intelligent as our kids are.
