Summary: Another look at Microsoft's abuse of the law and its relationship to Office 2010, which will not support OOXML

YESTERDAY we wrote about Microsoft's abuse in France paying off. Groklaw has highlighted this corresponding page which is suitably titled "François Fillon's gift to Microsoft" and it states:

The decree validating the General Interoperability Framework was published in the French "Journal Officiel" on the 11th of November 2009. It ratifies the 12th of May 2009 version which spreads confusion by recommending two rival standards for office documents. April had already denounced a writing opposed to the goals of interoperability and accessibility of e-administration for all citizens.

"RGI as it is written maintains the confusion about office documents standards. It hands public administrations over to Microsoft's deceptions and dooms their data to be kept locked in proprietary formats" explained public affairs manager Alix Cazenave. "Far from promoting interoperability this duplicity will generate discrimination between citizens for the access to electronic administrations."

In April's opinion, this record confirms that the French executive authority hardly pays attention to competition in the software market. "After the intervention of the President's people in favor of Microsoft's OOXML standardization, the fact that the Prime Minister ratifies this order confirms the support of the French executive authority to Microsoft's dominant position. We have just missed a historical opportunity to support openness and innovation in the software market" denounced Frédéric Couchet, executive director.

To the above, adds Groklaw (no permanent link): "The silliness of this decision can be gleaned from footnote 4, which reads in part: "The current document recommends the use of either Open Document format or OOXML format. DGME, French Directorate-General for State Modernisation, however admits that 'no implementation of this standard currently exists'."

“So you can use either ODF or OOXML, except actually you can't use OOXML currently, and in fact nobody in the world is, but they chose it anyway as an interoperability standard.”
      --Groklaw"It's quoting from the RGI document, which you can verify by reading it -- it's a pdf and in French -- and then look at page 61. Sean Daly translates paragraph five for us: "Office Open XML is an XML-based office productivity format. It natively supports a subset of existing binary formats. As of this writing, no implementation of this standard exists." And the last paragraph on that page: "This sheet is based upon information available as of May 2009 and will be revised before the official publication of the reference document [RGI] if new information pertinent to the evaluation appears." So you can use either ODF or OOXML, except actually you can't use OOXML currently, and in fact nobody in the world is, but they chose it anyway as an interoperability standard. Silly or what?"

Well, anyway, Microsoft was accused of lying last week when asked about OOXML support in Office 2010. Based on this early review of Office 2010, Microsoft is 'pulling another Ribbon' and giving more people reason to despise Office 2010.

The fun doesn't end with Outlook. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all infected with what I've dubbed the Back Stage Virus. I'm referring, of course, to the new Back Stage view that pops up whenever you click the File tab in any of these applications. Instead of the drop-down menu that appears on all previous ribbonized applications (including the Windows 7 Paint and WordPad accessories), Office 2010 presents you with a dedicated, full-window pane containing a schizophrenic array of buttons, button menus, and hyperlink-like text labels.

This can also be found here: "Microsoft Office 2010: So Many Reasons to Hate It"

Office 2010 is clunky -- that's the first word that comes to mind as I meander around the recently leaked official beta release (build 14.0.4514.1007, for those keeping score). The default color scheme is a ghastly gradient gray blur, while the new Outlook Scenic Ribbon toolbar is a disorganized mess.

VentureBeat argues that Microsoft "misses the boat" when it comes to web applications and the Gerson Lehrman Group has a typo in its report's headline/title, which says: "Microsoft Protects its Flanks to Save It's Ass"

Summary

* Microsoft is making a defensive alliance to complete its stack * Fortunes will be made and lost developing cloud offerings * Despite the hype Cloud Computing is a real long term trend

As we will show later today, Microsoft is now conspiring with companies to attack its ODF-supporting competitors in a gangster-like fashion. That's the only thing Microsoft has left as bullies will be bullies. ⬆