02.14.08
OOXML Marketing: Calling Lies a “Spin”
Yesterday, The Register mentioned Microsoft latest name for their DRM technology. They call it ReadyPlay. You know, like it’s ready and it actually plays. Pretty much the opposite of DRM, isn’t it? They still try to hide the real nature of what they do using weaselish names.
“They still try to hide the real nature of what they do using weaselish names.”Microsoft does this perpetually. For similar reasons, shilling they have renamed “evangelism”, bribery is called “marketing help”, disablement is called “Genuine Advantage”, and computers that no longer trust their users fall under the “Trusted Computing” umbrella.
For similar reason, a closed format which includes binary streams was named Open XML. But it’s neither open, nor is it a a proper use of XML. A reader of ours, Pandu Rao, wrote about this back in December. Joining the same discussion is noooxml.org, which speaks about the naming issue.
We speak of “OOXML” for good reasons. Bad naming leads to real confusion. This applies also to ECMA International which submitted the superb format to ISO and recently added 2300 pages of change proposals/denials.
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Sure, OOXML is not XML, it is a format said to be specified in XML as a meta language.
Docvert, which was mentioned here before, has just received some press coverage in ComputerWorld New Zealand.
The software is a web application which takes word processor files, such as Microsoft’s .doc, and converts them to Open Document Format and HTML
Georg Greve’s “converter hoax” article comes to mind here because there can never be a successful translation from OOXML to anything else. OOXML is an application (and an accompanying platform) rather than a standard, let alone a format.
Check out this newer analysis of an older Microsoft spin from the Philippines where OOXML was equated to “choice”.
On the other hand it is notable that the choice propaganda is just unilateral. Microsoft does not offer customers of their products to choose between ODF and OOXML.
As stated very recently (even two days ago), it’s the choice to have no choice at all. It’s choosing monopoly. █
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