Daily Links 06/10/2008 (p.m.)

For Clinton, Millions in Debt and Few Options – NYTimes.com

“With her campaign now officially suspended, Senator Hillary Rodham “Clinton is confronting still another challenge: whittling down what is believed to be the largest presidential campaign debt in history.
Besides the $11.4 million of her own money that Mrs. Clinton lent her campaign, she had about $9.5 million in unpaid bills to vendors at the end of April, according to her most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission.”

tags: OB, politics

SOCIALTEXT UNVEILS SOCIALCALC, THE FIRST SOCIAL SPREADSHEET

“Traditionally, wikis have centered on paragraphs of text and have proven invaluable for dealing with information in that form,” said Dan Bricklin. “I am thrilled at how we have been able to bring spreadsheet editing into the wiki environment. Business people get the familiar layout, formatting, and calculation functionality of a spreadsheet together with the organic multi-page building and sharing functionality of a wiki. The spreadsheet metaphor has proven to be one of the most popular ways to organize, analyze, and store a vast range of types of information. With the addition of SocialCalc, Socialtext now has an even more powerful tool to let groups develop and keep track of their important data and ideas.”

tags: OB, spreadsheet

Suncorp envisages Linux, ODF for 20,000 desktops: News – Software – ZDNet Australia

“Ironically, Smith’s decision to bring open source to Suncorp’s desktop rests heavily on Microsoft’s decision to support OpenDocument Format (ODF) in Office 2007 — Suncorp’s current office productivity suite. Smith said the two key factors that will determine how open source can be used at the desktop are legacy applications and the portability of documents.”

tags: OB, Australia, open source, ODF, Microsoft

ITWeb :XML in govt workshop scheduled [South Africa]

“The State IT Agency will host a free workshop to discuss XML standards in government, from 17 to 20 June, at the Tshwane University of Technology. Public sector adoption has been in the media spotlight over the last few months, with Open Document Format (ODF) becoming a local national standard. SA is also leading the appeal of the ratification of Microsoft Open XML.”

tags: OB, XML, standards, ODF, South Africa

EU’s Kroes: open standards are smart business move | Markets | Markets News | Reuters

“Companies make a smart business decision when they choose open standards, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a wide-ranging talk on an issue involving Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and others.”

tags: OB, standards, EU