Microsoft Accuses Google Docs of Data Infidelity 178
Hugh Pickens writes "For years Google has been pitching migrations from Microsoft Office to Google Docs, arguing that Docs makes Office 2003 and 2007 better because users can store Microsoft Office documents in Google's cloud and share them in their original format. Now eWeek reports that Alex Payne, director of Microsoft's online product management team, says that moving files created with Office to Google Docs results in the loss of data fidelity, including the loss of such data components as charts, styles, watermarks, fonts, tracked changes, and SmartArt. 'They are claiming that an organization can use both seamlessly,' Payne writes. 'This just isn't the case.' Meanwhile, Google defended its original 'Docs makes Office better' in a statement, noting that it has made a lot of improvements to the web editors in Docs with its recent refresh, and promising that functionality will only get better as Google integrates the DocVerse assets into Docs. 'It says a lot about Microsoft's approach to customer lock-in that the company touts its proprietary document formats, which only Microsoft software can render with true fidelity, as the reason to avoid using other products,' says a Google spokesperson."
Web Based Document Editing (Score:2, Insightful)
I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version). If you've ever worked for any type of large business lately, word processing is WAY past the basic formatting options I've seen in any online suite.
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Well, if true, I guess you could count my (rather large) organization as one that would never used Google Docs. Tracking changes alone is a feature used extensively by our business departments.
I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version). If you've ever worked for any type of large business lately, word processing is WAY past the basic formatting options I've seen in any online suite.
Change tracking in the current Google Docs seems more than sufficient as you can see each change a user made in a timeline and choose to revert to any point in the timeline. You even get to do comments and such very similar to MS Word. In the end Microsoft intentionally doesn't play well with others so that they can continue to lock people into one forced solution. This is typical business strategy and can't be argued. They have done this for years with IE as well as hold the web back as a result.
Re:Web Based Document Editing (Score:4, Interesting)
I further suspect that this is a difficult thing because(in addition to probably being crufty, complex, and not as well documented as it might be), "change tracking" is partially a strictly technical problem, and partly a UI/design philosophy problem. It would be, by no means, a surprise to learn that Word and Docs have distinct approaches that simply may not be fully commensurate with one another.
Consider the analogy of programs/UIs that are basically folder hierarchy based, vs. programs/UIs that are basically metadata "tag" based. There are some basic technical challenges you would run into if you wanted to make one approach play nicely with the other(ie. parsing the metadata properly); but most of your challenges would be more about stylistic decisions concerning how best to bodge one style into the other's conventions. Should you parse the metadata and create "virtual folders" that echo a sensible folder hierarchy organization of those files? If you have a hierarchical folder tree, how best to turn that information into meaningful tags?, etc.
Tags with parents (Score:2)
If you have a hierarchical folder tree, how best to turn that information into meaningful tags?
Here's how MediaWiki solves that problem: Each tag (called a Category) has its own page, but this page can itself have Categories. So for each folder, create a Category, and list the Categories corresponding to its parent folders,
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First one has to ask why one "rather large" organization would even entrust it's confidential documents in the first place to another rather large organization which makes its living based solely on the looking at the contents of one's emails, searches, web browsing habits and documents just to deliver advertising.
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First one has to ask why one "rather large" organization would even entrust it's confidential documents in the first place to another rather large organization which makes its living based solely on the looking at the contents of one's emails, searches, web browsing habits and documents just to deliver advertising.
They don't do this when you get a corporate or institutional account with Google. The company/university pays for the services, and there is no advertising or data-mining.
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I think that in and of itself is sufficient reason to not use a cloud solution.
What's your reasoning behind this? Entrusting your documents to large corporations basically is business. Do you think you'll get better results with a small business or something?
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I think that in and of itself is sufficient reason to not use a cloud solution.
What's your reasoning behind this? Entrusting your documents to large corporations basically is business. Do you think you'll get better results with a small business or something?
I think the intended contrast was between entrusting your documents to large corporations or entrusting your documents to your own solution (developed in-house or purchased) that runs on equipment you administer and fully control.
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I think the intended contrast was between entrusting your documents to large corporations or entrusting your documents to your own solution (developed in-house or purchased) that runs on equipment you administer and fully control.
Realistically, how many companies do that? Most companies use Microsoft Office, which they don't fully control. And most companies use outsourced servers, services, pretty much everything. A company that rolls all of its own technology is basically wasting resources.
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I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version).
Have you heard of this thing called the World Wide Web? It is a web-based document system that has quite a few more users than MS Office does. It's even available on the internet!
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I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version).
Have you heard of this thing called the World Wide Web? It is a web-based document system that has quite a few more users than MS Office does. It's even available on the internet!
And there are areas where the World Wide Web falls down. For example, not all browsers fully supported rich text editing the last time I checked. Nor do all browsers support the HTML5 technologies needed for use on devices with only sporadic connections to the Internet.
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Well, if true, I guess you could count my (rather large) organization as one that would never used Google Docs. Tracking changes alone is a feature used extensively by our business departments. I honestly don't think any web-based document system will can compete with MS Office (desktop version). If you've ever worked for any type of large business lately, word processing is WAY past the basic formatting options I've seen in any online suite.
If that is so, why is MS itself releasing a stripped-down version of MS Office 2010 FREE on their cloud (presumably to compete with Google)?
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releasing a stripped-down version
...
You basically answered your own question or, at least, gave the seed of the answer. Microsoft, (largely correctly), sees enterprises and organizations with complex requirements and/or a substantial Office-based legacy stack as being substantially locked in. This is why enterprise versions of Office cost as much, per seat, as they do, and why Microsoft's answer to the demand for better networked collaboration at the enterprise level is basically "It's SharePoint, and yup, that'll cost you, or nothing,
Re:Web Based Document Editing (Score:5, Insightful)
...If you've ever worked for any type of large business lately, word processing is WAY past the basic formatting options I've seen in any online suite.
If a significant fraction of the employees in your large business are wasting time on fancy formatting options, you're going to find yourself using the phrase "too big to fail" sometime in your future. Specialization is good for your business, and the fanciest needs really fall under the auspices of marketing. Let them take care of it using real tools (page layout software, for instance).
Don't settle for every secretary, intern, and team member in the company spending 28 hours each week churning over which fancy formatting options make the minutes of the other 12 hours of meetings look the best.
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Just because a document uses advanced formatting, it doesn't mean the people using it need to worry about how it works. With proper use of templates all they need to know is where to type what an
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Well, if true, I guess you could count my (rather large) organization as one that would never used Google Docs. Tracking changes alone is a feature used extensively by our business departments.
Well, I think you will prefer Google Docs/Spreadsheets then. With Google Docs/Spreadsheet, revision tracking is turned on by default. Google Docs / Spreadsheets is really a collaborative platform built from the ground up.
You'll just have to be careful when you import any ongoing existing Word/Excel documents into Google Docs. It's only the importing process that will lose that info. After that, Google Docs/Google Spreadsheets will track any changes that are made within it.
And if you're really worried abou
But is this a real usage scenario? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, how often do the people Google is trying to cater to actually use these features? Google Docs has always struck me as a quick and easy way to get Word documents from anywhere. And I've gotta say, not many of my office reports use fancy styles, or SmartArt. Charts occasionally, yes, but the rest of those items just strike me as "meh" and SmartArt particularly strikes me as "yeah, that was cool when I was seven."
I dunno. It just doesn't seem to me like this is going to be a problem in common usage.
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On the one hand, it seems anyone who's ever used a computer before in their life would half-way expect this sort of incompatibility to arise, given the drastically different natures of Google Docs and Office (Web based vs standalone app).
Lowering your expectations is a great way to ensure the underlying problem is never addressed . The fact that we still don't have dependable multi-vendor support for some of the world's most common document interchange formats over 15 years after they were first introduced is a bit sad, don't you think?
Google Docs has always struck me as a quick and easy way to get Word documents from anywhere.
Even if you only use Docs as a distribution system, its unreliable import / export conversion can be infuriating. Things as simple as line spacing or paragraph indentation frequently get broken, and I've yet
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The expectations were lowered a very long time ago by Microsoft. This was the same strategy it used against Wordperfect.
Re:But is this a real usage scenario? (Score:4, Informative)
I have found Google Docs is very true to Open Office format reproduction. The problem isn't Google Docs. It is M$'s sneaky secret, proprietary format. Switch to Open Office for your primary word processor and there will be no problem!
What fidelity (Score:5, Insightful)
The unfortunate thing is that teachers and professors all see the student issues due to the failure of the MS products, yet continue to insist on their use, blaming it on the incompetency of the students rather than the incompetency of MS.
MS products are good in firms that have the resources to insure all machines are homogeneous and up to date, firms that require a high level of collaborations of complex non-technical documents(This does not include most educational places). Otherwise, at least for documents, OO.org, Google docs, or LaTeX should be the norm. For spreadsheets OO.org, and especially Google, has some stuff lacking. For presentations, I think everything but Keynote pretty much sucks.
PDF? (Score:5, Informative)
I see students failing papers because the Word on one machine does not read word files created on another machine in a different version.
And this is why my resume is in PDF format.
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Though it's a PITA if you're in an industry where finding suitable hires is handled extensively by employment agencies. Which frequently demand your CV in .doc format and simply won't even put it forward if it isn't.
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So, how's that job search coming along? :P
Re:PDF? (Score:4, Interesting)
I love the way the term 'ideology' is used to co-opt the debate.
There are correct uses of the term, of course. But in this example, it means, "I don't care if you're right and I'm wrong. I'm paying you to do your job my way, so shut up and do it."
In any area of business, this makes the employee exactly as smart -or as stupid- as the boss. Statistically speaking, therefore, it's a stupid approach.
Let's be clear, though: Here on Slashdot, 'Ideology' is really just code for FOSS and the principle that there is indeed a Right Tool For The Job, but that tool isn't always the most expedient. 'Ideology', therefore, sometimes means more work and potentially delayed gratification.
Of course, sometimes it means the opposite. Sometimes it means, 'quit floundering about using third-rate tools. Apply a little original thought for once in your life and accept that there are better ways to get things done.'
The wise boss knows about the risks on both sides of this equation and remains open to persuasion (though appropriately skeptical). The unwise boss, labels every thought not originating between his ears 'ideology' and ignores it.
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No matter how small of a piece of the puzzle you are in a company you influence things.
The important thing is to know how to limit yourself. I personally like trying to introduce the "open" philosophy in my work. When I have a chance I try to go with an open alternative instead of a closed one.
This is the key. Do what you have to do to get the job done in the best way you can, but always try to keep in mind where you can pick an open alternative! Dont degrate your work or force the change, make the change h
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And no, some newly hired developer isn't in a position to have better perspective of the business' needs than the people who hired him.
Because the fact I don't have MS Office on my home computer somehow affects how well I will be able to do the job I'm hired to do?
I agree with the AC; I take being unable to handle my CV in PDF format as a good indication that it's not somewhere I want to work.
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Because the fact I don't have MS Office on my home computer somehow affects how well I will be able to do the job I'm hired to do?
Yes. You are hired in part for the possibility that you will not need as much training on the software that the employer uses because you use the same software at home.
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Employers aren't interested in your ideologies. When they are paying you, they expect you to stay within the bounds of your job description
Likewise, employees are interested in employers whose ideologies match theirs in order that the job description is tolerable. A Linux fan would rather work in a Linux shop than a Windows shop.
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And some people want it purely Word documents like job recruiter, teachers/professors, etc. :(
Do what I do make PDF, Word doc, printouts, etc. avilable for them and pick the best for them.
My dis am bigger (Score:3, Informative)
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I think google docs is a fine class requirement, it's not like people will have trouble getting it to run. There's always chrome. If you're worried about privacy, use it only for google apps.
For spreadsheets, there's gnumeric. You can even run it on Windows.
Re:What fidelity (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing could be further from the truth. MS products are generally terrible for the creation of collaborative, complex, non-technical documents. It's just that organisations are for the most part incurious and unwilling to depart from the well-trodden path.
This isn't exclusively Microsoft's fault. Almost without exception[*], WYSIWYG editors suck [imagicity.com].
This is just another example of a phenomenon that remain inscrutable to hackers and geeks the world over. Generally speaking, people are incurious. They don't particularly care about the best or even the right way to do something. In fact, as long as they create the surface impression of having done something (e.g. using Word to create an unparseable, ungodly hodge-podge of visual formatting and calling it a 'complex document'), they're generally satisfied to let things lie.
Of course, this is the fundamental principle that animates the Dilbert universe and makes it the serio-comic tragedy that it is.
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[*] I only say 'almost' because I'm willing to admit that in some parallel universe, some Leonardo of the keyboard might conceivably have invented a WYSIWYG word processor that actually does an adequate job at non-trivial tasks. In that same alternate universe, however, I can skate across a giant butter lake wearing a frilly orange tutu, then mount my flying unicorn and float away over cotton-candy clouds to my home in an enchanted toadstool.
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I'm not sure it's a matter of being incurious. These products have reached a certain critical mass, where a business analyst from Company A can easily integrate into Company B's workflow without too much training.
The good thing about monoculture is that you can pretty much take your knowledge and go anywhere, and likewise, as an employer, you can hire anyone and expect a certain competency in your systems on day one. There are a lot of downsides, but for a business, whose only interested in results and the
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You would be if you'd were curious enough to consider the issue a little more. 8^)
'Critical mass' is exactly my point. Companies A & B call their awkward, borderline anarchic process of batting emails and Word attachments back and forth a 'Workflow'. And to some degree they're right. But they ne
LyX: What you see is what you mean (Score:2)
Almost without exception, WYSIWYG editors suck. I only say 'almost' because I'm willing to admit that in some parallel universe, some Leonardo of the keyboard might conceivably have invented a WYSIWYG word processor that actually does an adequate job at non-trivial tasks.
I seem to remember that LyX [wikipedia.org], a graphical editor for LaTeX documents, popularized What You See Is What You Mean [wikipedia.org] in word processing. Except I don't see any contributor [lyx.org] named Leonard.
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I see students failing papers because the Word on one machine does not read word files created on another machine in a different version.
I'm calling bullshit.
The specified format that teachers/professors use is generally the format that the on campus computers use (if you are in high school, the format is printed, not electronic), so if you are a student, you have access to write your paper, save it in the appropriate format, and electronically convey it to the professor using your school email address. Or if you live off campus, you can write in the format of choice, send to your school email address, show up on campus, convert it from the
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The whole "The Word on one machine does not read word files created on another machine in a different version" is utter bullshit. While some formatting data tends to get screwed up, I've never had this problem with one version of word to another in over 10 years.
On the other hand, I used to get one-day extensions in high school by taking a random file, changing the extension to
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I'm calling bullshit on your calling bullshit.
Davenport University, 2005 (spring session), English. Online course, prof uses MS Word on Mac, I use OpenOffice.org (1.x, on WinXP).
Things showed up different on his screen vs mine, and thus I got marked down.
Same problem now with submitting my CV to various companies that refuse to accept it in PDF.
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I have to call FUD on that -- Word 2007 will read file formats from before those students were born. If they are claiming that Word ate their homework, they are lying.
Microsoft has locked out some older file formats, such as PowerPoint before Office 97, because they don't want to maintain security on the conversion code. Organizations with long memories (like the company I
Newer version at home than at school (Score:2)
I have to call FUD on that -- Word 2007 will read file formats from before those students were born. If they are claiming that Word ate their homework, they are lying.
Unless Word 2003 at school won't easily recognize .docx files from Word 2007 at home, nor will the school district's IT department let the student install the import filter.
Err right? (Score:5, Interesting)
So this basically just states that Google Doc's data fidelity is only as good as Google makes it. So the only question businesses have is "Are Googles data fidelity policies better maintained than our own".
If yes, use it, if no, stay internal.
What Microsoft has to do with that question other than warping the question into an assumption to fear i sure dont know.
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if you're going to be a grammar troll you could at least be right. Policies is the subject in the second sentence and it's plural, are is correct.
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if you're going to be a grammar troll you could at least be right. Policies is the subject in the second sentence and it's plural, are is correct.
Grammar trolls shouldn't confuse "it's" and "its". They should also know when to use capital letters and commas.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Yah, right, whatever... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the year 1900 a Leap Year? (Score:2)
Does Google Docs treat the year 1900 as a leap year?
Microsoft is really really desperate to be blowing this kind of smoke.
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Grasping at straws (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, Microsoft is really digging deep on that one. I don't have any problems tracking document changes. We use the strike-through and different colored text for each contributor. So I know at a glance who changed what.
If you need legal change tracking, you're not going to be using web-based software anyway. Besides, if there's a big call for that feature, I bet Google can figure out how to supply it.
I think the days of desktop software are winding down. Google can be far more nimble with Docs than MSFT can be with Office. And the features that the MS guy mentioned, only small minority of users find those at all useful.
Taking a swipe at Google just informed thousands people that you can move .docs around with GoogleDocs. Doesn't seem real bright.
Technet can't get fonts right (Score:5, Informative)
Amusingly, the Technet blog entry [technet.com] has text marked as "Calibri" font, with no alternatives. Calibri is a Microsoft-only font that comes with Vista. So non-Vista systems render the text in Times Roman. Calibri is a sans-serif font, and all the other fonts in that Wordpress theme are sans-serif, so the page looks awful.
Now that font downloading works in essentially all the current browsers, that's not necessary, at least if you stick to public-domain fonts. However, there aren't many public-domain fonts that don't suck at small type sizes. (Here's a page of mine with some downloaded fonts. [aetherltd.com]) If you have anti-aliasing on, it looks OK; if not, the text font looks ugly. Interestingly, Linux and Macs do anti-aliasing routinely, but older Windows systems do not.
Google Docs has the same problem. Currently, it works like classic HTML; if you have the font locally, you can use it, but if not, you get some default. The stock fonts in Google Docs are the lowest common denominator: "Normal", "Normal/Serif", "Courier New", "Trebuchet", and "Verdana". If Google is going to make a big push on competing with Word, they need to do better than that. Google could make progress on this by buying twenty or so really good body fonts outright from a major font foundry, and setting them up for download on demand for Google Docs.
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Google could make progress on this by buying twenty or so really good body fonts outright from a major font foundry, and setting them up for download on demand for Google Docs.
Or, they could go the way of Arial and just make up their own set of fonts that are close enough to the popular Microsoft ones. It would be kind of playing dirty, but who knows if Google's typeface creators could come up with some stuff that's better than what Microsoft has.
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Google could make progress on this by buying twenty or so really good body fonts outright from a major font foundry, and setting them up for download on demand for Google Docs.
Or, they could go the way of Arial and just make up their own set of fonts that are close enough to the popular Microsoft ones. It would be kind of playing dirty, but who knows if Google's typeface creators could come up with some stuff that's better than what Microsoft has.
Better than Comic Sans? You're insane!!! ;-)
Bad Uploads (Score:4, Informative)
When you open a DOCX or DOC file in Google Docs it converts them and Google Docs doesn't have the same functionality either.
But in terms of the data, it's not Google's fault that MS hasn't created an open standard for the document files..
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Change tracking is important in my line of work. I know there are a few other features as well. Not mention graphics, etc.
MS wants recognition for their effort (Score:5, Funny)
Laughing out loud (Score:2)
Wake me up when I don't need a windows license to use MS' google docs alternative.
Google has a point (Score:5, Insightful)
This just goes to show that when you use Microsofts software, you are locked to using their products and their products only. Because the format is closed, other parties will always be playing catchup and can never guarantee 100% compatibility. So Googles snarky comment at the end reveals just how lethal lock-in can be. You are locked in, with no way out.
I can understand that you might resent loosing data in a migration or usage of another tool, but put the blame FIRST with Microsoft and THEN with yourself for having allowed yourself to get locked in.
In any other part of your business, you would avoid lock-in at all costs. Would you tolerate that your floors could only be provided by ONE company and that it means no body else can put in a carpet without it breaking gravity? Would you allow your truck fleet to be provided by only ONE company and have that company know it? A common trick in the trucking branch is when it is time to place a new order is to invite the truck company to your place of business and have a few rival trucks parked in sight. Just a hint that you and the sales rep know there is competition out there.
In IT? You happily invite the MS guy to give you a new deal in your all MS office that can only deal with MS formats... yeah. What is the word in the sales rep mind? Bonus? Sucker?
Governments do this all the time, they give their divisions rules that they must buy from a supplier who has won the bid. And gosh, once they have the bid for the next couple of years, service just goes out of the window. How surprising. Especially when you just know that the quality of service under the previous contract will play no role whatsoever under the new bidding round. Ever wonder why government often does so badly in efficiency? They think lock-in is a GOOD thing. You know how you get good service from a supplier? Make him sweat as to whether your next order will be going to him. It is how the game is played.
Really, take a long hard look at your own company. How certain are you that you can access your own info without aid from a third party? A paper archive is easy. No matter who supplies the binders, you can read it. Tape drives? How certain are you they continue to be compatible? Are your records required by law actually readable? Can you afford to ditch a supplier who doesn't make business sense anymore? Can you get the best deal if the supplier knows you need him?
Why do you think MS sells Windows for ever higher prices? They know they got you by the short and curlies.
Good luck (Score:2)
I either think that you never did a big deal or sucked at it. You are NOT going to get that contract if the supplier knows that you have no choice.
Proof me wrong: Get MS to accept liability for anything wrong with their product. You can't. If you trucks blew up because of a security flaw, the truck company has to compensate you. Does MS compensate you for its security flaws?
Microsoft Google??? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is rich! Microsoft's software has the poorest interoperability capability of all Office Productivity suites.
Why should MS bitch about this when it's own software cannot even open basic documents created in other office productivity suites?
Hmm (Score:2)
Maybe Microsoft could pull out the Word file format specification and show us exactly what Google is doing wrong?
Hubris (Score:2)
I'd've thought MS's FUD department would have come up with something better seeing as they're just about to release a competitor to Google Docs - you know, something like a coordinated campaign of spurious patent trolling, adverts etc. But fidelity? Not exactly a rallying cry for the troops. Maybe it's a case of hubris - the MS Office team have had the playing field to themselves for such a long time, they can't really contemplate a successful competitor. Sucks to be them.
Of course Microsoft is correct (Score:2)
... because you only have to use Google Docs for about 2 minutes to run into commonly-used features from Microsoft Office that just don't exist. I create a chart and I can't format the axes, I can't put in a trend line, I can't copy and paste it into a document. The drawing tools are laughably unsophisticated. Google Docs doesn't offer feature parity with a 1993 copy of Clarisworks, much less Microsoft Office.
I like Google Docs as a handy scratchpad to create documents accessible from anywhere and quickly e
So is that totally different from MS products? (Score:2)
I stopped using MS word whenever i could when correctly printing a Word document containing equations requiring having loaded the equation editor before printing (otherwise just garbage). Moreover i would imagine that word documents, which contain DDE-Objects (hmm Excuse-me: OLE-Objects) may have some issues when loading them on another Platform.
*And before you ask: yes, i may have some Floppy images with Documents from 1995 on my HD, not touched sinces then; and yes, my Latex documents from back then stil
Hah-haaaa Microsoft accuses of 'infidelity' (Score:2)
i mean, how can they. this is the equivalent of getting caught committing adultery, and firing back by accusing others of adultery.
Google should make an ad out of this! (Score:3, Funny)
Google should make an ad out of this, really
"Would Microsoft badmouth Google Docs, if it wasn't really great?"
GDocs does lack fidelity, but there's more to it (Score:2)
Two cases in point.
First, I needed my wife to review a rules set for a game that I produce and Google Docs seemed to be the way to do it as she was at work and I was at home. I lost all formatting, but that was easily recreated. No big deal, lesson being share docs like this when remote collaboration is required, but plan on having to r
Re:Google vs Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Even while the file formats are open now
Really? Please point me to the relevant reference for the Office 2007 file format. And don't even think about saying anything related to OOXML because its not even close.
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Re:Google vs Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
except if your paying attention MSFT doesn't actually use those documented features, and instead use an older version.
OOXML that ISO passed is different from the OOXML produced by office 2007 and 2010.
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Why is parent modded down? (Score:2, Funny)
At time of this posting parent is modded zero.
All parent did was to provide the exact information GP was asking for. Is the truth really so inconvenient?
Even if you don't agree, please show some integrity when modding, ok?
Re:Google vs Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because the formats are 'open' in the sense that they are poorly documented and difficult to implement. Opening your formats is one thing - assisting others to actively achieve interoperability is another
Re:Google vs Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Google vs Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
"Uh, if Google cannot make their Docs applications compatible with Office formats, how is it Microsoft's fault?"
Because they keep everything a secret - thats been their way of destroying opposition.
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"Uh, if Google cannot make their Docs applications compatible with Office formats, how is it Microsoft's fault?"
Because they keep everything a secret - thats been their way of destroying opposition.
Logic fail.
If I slept with your wife and keep that a secret from you, that secrecy isn't why you can't give her an orgasm.
In the same line of thought, if you sleep with my wife and keep it a secret from me, that secrecy isn't why you can't give her an orgasm either.
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you poor, poor guy... you actually believed you were giving her an orgasm?
Re:Google vs Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has too many half-assed projects it cannot or doesn't fully support.
So, exactly the same as Microsoft, then?
Re:Google vs Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, the DOC format (the original Word formats) are not open, only DOCX are somewhat open. The problems are in: charts, styles, watermarks, fonts, tracked changes, and SmartArt.
Charts, watermarks, tracked changes and SmartArt are not open/documented in the OOXML formats. Styles and fonts are usually converted pretty well unless the document is generated by MS Office because then it isn't according to spec anymore.
Not quite. (Score:2, Informative)
First of all, the DOC format (the original Word formats) are not open, only DOCX are somewhat open.
Oh please! The DOC format is not open in the sense that anyone can contribute. But the documentation of the format is fully available for anyone who take interest. It merely requires a single google: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/docs/OfficeBinaryFormats.mspx [microsoft.com]
DOCX is fully open. Anyone who wants to contribute is free to do so. You just have to go through ECMA/ISO - just like Microsoft. It is fully described in the ISO standard ISO/IEC 29500. The standard is freely downloadable from ISO. If you had cared t
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That several teams, talented individuals and the combined power of the internets haven't figured out how to fully and correctly render a fairly simple
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
That's a fairly accurate summary of the pompous attitude at Google: "We're so smart that if we fuck up it must be someone else's fault." Its spokestroll didn't even say, "The specs are hard to read and we are too self-confident to ask for clarification on the official MS developer forums," instead bitching about some unfair advantage for Microsoft which isn't even properly specified. Let me tell you a spec so convoluted that no-one has ever written a full implementation of a recent incarnation: the W3C's HT
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You make a very interesting point about HTML.
That said, clearly there are usable, practical subsets of the HTML spec that are supported by multiple HTML rendering projects. The question with HTML is whether the *other stuff in there* should be in there.
It's not a straightforward question. Look at SQL -- a language in near universal use in relational databases but with a relatively weak standard. The SQL standard is next to worthless for the things you want a standard for. You can't take an applicatio
Re:Google vs Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
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Purely out of curiosity, how is having your data locked into Google's application and stored in who-knows-what format on the backend any better than being locked into Microsoft?
(Yes I know Google allows you to download your files in a number of common formats and they provide a scripting API. Does it store the data in, say, ODF at the backend? Considering GFS isn't POSIX compliant, is it even stored in a form that conceptually resembles a file? If the document is converted on the fly when you download i
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Yes, it is a valid point that data can potentially be locked into Google's universe. However, Google have set up a website, http://www.dataliberation.org/ [dataliberation.org] to help move data in and out of its products. Not perfect, perhaps, but certainly not Microsoft.
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Microsoft's approach involves selling software and client retention.
No, their approach involves getting a monopoly on something by hook or by crook then keeping the riff raff out. The only markets they make significant money on, are the monopolies.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's approach involves client retention. Okay, fine. But the way they're going about doing it - making it nearly impossible to write an application compatible with their formats - is anticompetitive and very evil.
And the car analogy simply does not hold. Image files are standardized, and I can expect a .png made in Photoshop to still look the same in GIMP or MS Paint. Sound formats are the same. Even for formatted text, there exists the completely open ODF format. MS's actions in making a format so closed and proprietary that often even different versions of their own software show the same file differently are simply inexcusable.
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Microsoft's approach involves selling software and client retention. That's not even something I could call evil in the same terms that google seems to be claiming.
Indeed. Just because Microsoft's past behaviour was universally considered unethical (when it wasn't ruled illegal) does mean we should be using terms like evil.
You want free? You lose functionality. That seems perfectly reasonable.
Well, that's certainly a better-phrased bullet point than the one that reads "License agreements, upgrade treadmill
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Microsoft's approach involves selling software and client retention. That's not even something I could call evil in the same terms that google seems to be claiming.
Indeed. Just because Microsoft's past behaviour was universally considered unethical (when it wasn't ruled illegal) does mean we should be using terms like evil.
You want free? You lose functionality. That seems perfectly reasonable.
Well, that's certainly a better-phrased bullet point than the one that reads "License agreements, upgrade treadmills and vendor lock-in offer a Genuine Advantage to our customers".
You are correct. Fortunately though, for those fond of the term "evil", Microsoft's current and recent behavior fits the same categories that earned them that title years back. Ya know... EU cases and all, failing to release any accurate/real docs for their new open document format, and on and on...
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
Why would Google mine the data when it doesn't serve ads on Premier Apps (that's the kind businesses use, FYI) unless the customer specifically requests it? I've read the ToS, and it doesn't mention mining data AFAICT.
7.1 Obligations. Each party will: (a) protect the other party’s Confidential Information with the same standard of care it uses to protect its own Confidential Information; and (b) not disclose the Confidential Information, except to affiliates, employees and agents who need to know it and who have agreed in writing to keep it confidential. Each party (and any affiliates, employees and agents to whom it has disclosed Confidential Information) may use Confidential Information only to exercise rights and fulfill obligations under this Agreement, while using reasonable care to protect it. Each party is responsible for any actions of its affiliates, employees and agents in violation of this Section.
...
8.1 Intellectual Property Rights. Except as expressly set forth herein, this Agreement does not grant either party any rights, implied or otherwise, to the other’s content or any of the other’s intellectual property. As between the parties, Customer owns all Intellectual Property Rights in Customer Data, and Google owns all Intellectual Property Rights in the Services.
Where are you getting this information of yours?
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My recollection of the ToS when I first signed up for gmail back in '04. I should add that I'm referring to the personal accounts.
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I know it's a stretch, but some may well view unobtrusive ads as a bonus.
We say we hate ads, but I bet that the ones that really irk us are the "in your face ones": boring TV commercials; popups; ads that make you scroll past them; etc. The ads that stay in prescribed spaces are not a problem for me, and have sometimes actually turned out to be relevant and useful.
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Sadly, it may be implied. Microsoft used to use similar language on their online services to spell out that they could and would sell what information collected from you to their "business partners" - namely anyone who wanted to buy the information to use for advertising.
Whether such a meaning IS implied in Google's ToS, I dont know. But if it is, it would be in the section I have bolded below.
7.1 Obligations. Each party will: (a) protect the other party’s Confidential Information with the same standard of care it uses to protect its own Confidential Information; and (b) not disclose the Confidential Information, except to affiliates, employees and agents who need to know it and who have agreed in writing to keep it confidential. Each party (and any affiliates, employees and agents to whom it has disclosed Confidential Information) may use Confidential Information only to exercise rights and fulfill obligations under this Agreement, while using reasonable care to protect it. Each party is responsible for any actions of its affiliates, employees and agents in violation of this Section. ...
8.1 Intellectual Property Rights. Except as expressly set forth herein, this Agreement does not grant either party any rights, implied or otherwise, to the other’s content or any of the other’s intellectual property. As between the parties, Customer owns all Intellectual Property Rights in Customer Data, and Google owns all Intellectual Property Rights in the Services.
Where are you getting this information of yours?
Now... I tend to agree with you because Google adds this part: "and who have agreed in writing to keep it confide
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Where are you getting this information of yours?
AFAICT, some of the logic comes not from "Google is teh evil!!11" but from "Outsourcing is teh evil!!11".
Something I can fully understand, considering so many of us have seen what happens when an outsourcing deal doesn't quite go according to plan. But frankly, if outsourcing was so terrible there would be no such things as payroll bureaux, accounting firms or HR consultancies.