Microsoft Fights for OOXML, Against ODF
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State by state, Microsoft responds to assault on its dominance – MarketWatch
“Characteristically, as lawmakers like Homan have learned, Microsoft’s hardly taking a passive position.”
Back in Space
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Ashes of Star Trek’s ‘Scotty’ fired into space – CNN.com
“The cremated remains of actor James Doohan, who portrayed engineer “Scotty” on “Star Trek,” soared into suborbital space Saturday aboard a rocket.”
OpenDocument Format
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Google Search Converts OpenDocument Formats » InsideGoogle
“Now, Google has added support for the OpenDocument format, most prominently used by OpenOffice, as well as Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets, Star Office, and KOffice.”
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KOffice Developers Meet with KDE Core People for ODF Infrastructure
“The KOffice developers will meet in Berlin during the weekend of May 12th-13th to do as much ODF-centered development as possible.”
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How’s the weather up there? NOAA gets a Second Life
“Called Meteora, the new island was launched last Thursday by NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab. They’ll have a planetarium, a tsunami-training beach, and offer submarine, hurricane, and weather balloon rides.”
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Making Marketing Work In Second Life And Virtual Worlds
“In the past couple of weeks it would seem like Marketers are starting to understand the power of marketing in Second Life and other virtual worlds.”
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Coca-Cola launches Virtual Thirst
“Open Competition Invites Second Life® Residents and the Public to Imagine a Virtual Vending Machine with Limitless Possibilities”
It’s sort-of worth taking stock of the ‘State of the Union’ as between IBM and Microsoft.
We know what IBM means; here’s the ad from the archives http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV2063.html .
We’re not quite so sure what Microsoft stand for, but they seem to be buying lots of chips for XBoxes. So it’s probably ‘commercial home entertainment’.
For a while, IBM was plugging OS/2 and Lotus SmartSuite, and rather losing out to Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.
But now, IBM’s plugging Linux, OpenOffice.org, and IBM Lotus Notes. Not a lot of profit in selling free software; in fact, Linux and OpenOffice.org aren’t IBM products at all.
The line is going down well with governments and large businesses; too well, maybe, some of them are forgetting that they’re supposed to buy Lotus Notes and Websphere.
But the small and medium businesses, and the schools, aren’t hearing the message. How to get it to them ?
I’m willing to give some of my personal time to help at my kids’ schools. Most parents are. I won’t charge. It’s not ‘competing with my employer’.
Thing is, I can’t service Windows and Office. The hood’s locked shut. No source code. No standards for what they’re supposed to do.
But I might be able to service Linux and OpenOffice.org . At least, I’m willing to give it a try. All the school has to do is ask; get a Feisty Fawn from https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ , ask me in to set it up.
And if the school has IBM Lotus Notes, it’s 1-800-IBM-SERV if they ever find it breaks.
There’s some other ‘jokers in the pack’ nowadays; Google and Sun come to mind. How do they play to it ?
On Microsoft fighting for MS-OOXML_________________
“Tom Robertson, Microsoft’s general manager of interoperability and standards, said Open XML, like ODF, is the result of genuine collaboration. “Even competitors to Microsoft were part of this thing,” including Apple Inc.”
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Apple has its own Office software now? Last time I checked Apple relied…. Microsoft Office!
Man, Tom, you guys aren’t even ‘trying’ [to be honest] anymore.