DrunkenBlog

Microsoft opening Office XML formats

For a user of an alternative platform, while the devil is the details, this could potentially be one of the biggest stories of the decade:

Microsoft is loosening licensing rules on Office 2003 formats in order to get around new "open standard" restrictions to be adopted by the US state of Massachusetts, according to a state official.

Microsoft told the state it is planning to modify the licensing scheme around its proprietary, patented, XML-based document formats, Kriss said, and as a result Massachusetts is planning to support the formats. Adobe's pdf format will also be supported, Kriss said, according to reports.

From what I can glean from the FAQ, Microsoft is keeping their patents but granting them perpetually to users for their XML formats. If you hadn't followed, Microsoft started a big push internally towards XML for all of its Office products. It's important to note that we're not just talking about the file formats, we're also talking about how the apps intercommunicate, as well as what they accept.

(There was a ton of effort put there, which made it a god send for those having to work that way, but truth be told left many users wondering what the hell they were paying for in the upgrade)

Of course, while Microsoft has moved to XML, all XML isn't quite XML and there were still the issues of the patents. Anyone who has ever used an 'alternative' Office suite knows their limitations when it comes to dealing with .DOC and other things, and knows that just claiming you import and export Office file formats doesn't mean there won't be huge problems. Problems enough that the support basically becomes a bullet point.

You can see this with something like TextEdit on Mac OS X, which with 10.3 got the ability to open and work with .DOC formats. A bunch of Mac users I know were gabbering about the end of the .DOC hegemon, but this support was extremely limited. If someone sent you a basic .DOC file, which was the equivalent of text only and just happened to be in a .DOC, TextEdit would be fine with it. If, however, they started using lots of tables, you had a real problem.

Or the worst, the absolute worst, was if someone had embedded a document from something else, like say Excel, within the document. This is much more common than you might think, because if you're in Windows, it just generally works and makes things exceedingly convenient. However, if you're a Mac user and trying to work with these people, you're SOL unless you pony up for Office yourself.

Which brings us to another big problem: the price of Office for the Mac. We can start talking about things like the bundling of the different programs into a suite, and the unfairness of it all, but that's one hell of can of worms that I don't think Mac users have the higher ground on when there are plenty of examples of it right in our own back yard.

The fact remains, the majority of users coming to the Mac, who need the Office functionality are going to be paying $399-$499, although you can get it for cheap if you are a student or a teacher. That's not chump change, and can throw a lump in the gullet of any potential switcher.

Still, the cost of Office for Windows isn't all that much lower, and many Mac users might make the argument that the Mac version is better anyways. It doesn't really matter, as I have only very rarely encountered an individual who uses Windows who has ever paid even close to full price for Office, if they have ever paid for it at all. There are three things going on here:

• They've been here once before
  There's a vastly higher chance the user will be upgrading from something on Windows, and hence getting a huge price break. If someone wants to upgrade to say, Microsoft Office Professional, chances are their computer was bundled with something they can upgrade from. Chances are, since they've been a Windows user for some time, they have some older version they can upgrade from. They just very rarely see that big $279 or $399 sticker price.
  
  
• Initial bundling
  If you'll notice, Apple bundles the craptastic AppleWorks (I know some people like AppleWorks, but when was the last real update?) with their Mac Minis, and in the past has bundled it with their iMacs. You can also point towards the iLife products being bundled with them, which is great if you're getting a new machine and often pointed to as "part of what you get for your extra money". If you haven't bought a PC in awhile, would you really think it would be any different?
  
  No one on the dark side generally pays for that big expensive OS, to go to the professional version of Windows (up from the Home which is bundled) on your $399 PC is usually ~$29. However, we were talking about productivity software, which is where the real killer is. Almost always, something like MS Works is bundled with the machine. Because of all this includes (including Word, spreadsheet, calendars, you name it) most never need to bother. Everything most need to coexist with businesses and the rest of the world is right there and isn't really thought about.
  
  
• Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
  Microsoft has free 'viewers' for just about all of their Office products. Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Project, Visio, etc. I know people who very rarely product anything in Office on the Mac, but they have a business, and most of the rest of the world uses Windows. If you want to do business with them, it's generally on their terms. They just couldn't have a business without the ability to at least view what is being sent to them. Some of them don't use Office, or the full versions, but they're at least able to work with the content in some form if they're using Windows without shelling out bucks.
  
  
• Giving it away
  Let's say for some reason you do want everything: Word, Outlook, Access, Excel, Powerpoint, Frontpage, Publisher, Project, InfoPath, Visio... whatever. Different editions come with different combinations, but the scary thing is that often times Microsoft is just basically giving it away somewhere. I wish I was kidding. It's rare to meet a developer on Windows that hasn't had copies of this stuff pushed towards him at some point, and there is almost always something you can sign up for that will slide one your way. Legally, I mean. I run into people all the time who use FrontPage because they picked up a copy somewhere with something. It's just crazy.

It all boils down to: one of the perks of using Windows is that you don't really have to worry about .DOC or anything like that. It's just cheap in that way, and the tax ticker shock many 'switchers' see when they look at the cost of Office shouldn't be ignored.

And Office is important. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, even though some will try. If Office didn't exist for the Mac right now, it doesn't mean your Mac would stop working, but it would mean the roles the Mac could play would become even more limited.

Theoretically, if this pans out, this move by Microsoft can alleviate much of this. Someone like Apple, or OpenOffice, or WordPerfect, or any alternative suite can put the effort in and have fantastic, if not transparent interchangeability with Office formats. Yes, they could try to brute force things before, but these formats are very complex at this point and it's not as easy as it sounds: even the best at it have problems that can cause a serious user to pull out there hair. And this doesn't even touch on the possible legal issues arising out of the DMCA and such now.

If this pans out, and that barrier is alleviated, alternative office suites are basically left facing these four:

• R&D
  Don't kid yourself -- Microsoft isn't going to just roll over and stop updating Office because other apps can now use it's file format. Office and Windows are their two main revenue streams. No, the goal will be to let these other solutions be there, but to make people choose to use Office. This means leveraging every type of integration they can, and every type of feature they can to make the sum much greater than the whole of the parts in people's eyes. They're going to leverage every advantage, including manpower, going forward. InfoPath is an example of this. As we've covered, the majority of individuals generally pay little if anything at all for Office, and Microsoft still rakes it in.
  
  
• The purple pill
  Firefox has shown just how much an OSS product can benefit from good, targeted marketing. Most OSS products just don't have it. Part of the problem is that many of them aren't sexy, and part of the problem is few of them really recognize the need for it. Either way, Microsoft has the marketing arm, and their goal will be to make people want what they have, even if something else would work fine.
  
  This is what's called the Purple Pill syndrome. Let's say you're a drug company, and the patent you hold on some drug is about to expire, which mean generics, costing a fraction of your drug's cost, are about to flood the market. You can keep selling what you are, but you're not going to be able to command the price you are. So you combine your drug with something else, often completely benign, creating a new variant which you then patent and put in a new size or color.
  
  Then you market the hell out of it via TV commercials and other mediums, flooding people's brains with what your new purple pill treats, and telling them to ask their doctor about it. People go in to see their doctor, and start asking him about the damnable purple pills, sometimes demanding it, and while that generic brand might do exactly what they need, no one wants it. Because it's not the purple pill.
  
  The goal here will be to say, "Yes, OpenOffice has that, but does it have this?", which always ties into the first problem.
  
  
• Interface
  Let's assume for a moment that Apple, or someone else, basically had a feature-complete alternative solution for everything you get in Microsoft Office Professional on Windows. No technical or format issues whatsoever. The fact would remain that it still wasn't Office.
  
  The temptation here is to say "It has everything you need", but that's only part of the story when it comes to really making headway. If you're a Photoshop, Quark, or InDesign user you can relate to this: if you use something every day, and know it inside and out, moving to something else, even if it has everything you need, can be a maddening experience because the interface isn't the same, and you know the interface. Or rather, you know the app.
  
  Let me reiterate: it doesn't matter if the new interface is better, it just matters that it's different. Many people spend all day in Office, and know it like the back of their hand. They've gone to classes. They've bought books. They've built up a knowledge base, and muscle memory, over years if not a decade. This is something a lot of Mac users never got when they saw a switcher come over from Windows and just decide they weren't Mac people. It wasn't that the Mac interface wasn't better when you sat down and tested someone who was fresh with a computer. It was just that the other person knew Windows, and the Mac was different.
  
  The success of Firefox is again another great example of this: one of the biggest complaints I hear about it, or other OSS products that have done well, is that their interfaces aren't "innovative". Evolution is another one people hit on for it. There's a time for that, and a place for that, but you have to take into consideration that if someone has years of built-up knowledge about something, they need to be eased into something new if you want to make marketshare headway now.
  
  
• Devil is in the details
  While Microsoft was pushing XML into its Office suite, it also started introducing other new features, like IRM. This would appear to be a MS-specific XML schema, and we don't specifically know if it will support all features that the Office programs care capable of, or even whether or not all of the apps will use it. I can imagine Word and many others will be able to by default, but will PowerPoint?
  
  What you don't want here is a situation where things improve greatly, but that they still can't be trusted to not have issues because Microsoft knows something that a vendor of an alternative suite doesn't. That's deceptively easy to have happen depending on what is supported and how. It would appear that there aren't any 'submarine' patents here, which are basically sleeper patents that you sit on until something gets big, as Microsoft is also granting any patents that they are currently in the process and related to the formats will be freely doled out...
  
  Still, call me paranoid, I want to see the whole thing vetted, and want some really smart brains to pore over everything and see where the problems could be 5 years from now.

The great thing here, is that the things I just mentioned can, theoretically, all be overcome if this all pans out. The way things were before, it was basically a rigged game in Microsoft's favor. To their credit, they basically created through smart moves and competitor's lack of them, much as Apple is currently doing with the iPod and iTMS, but it's still a rigged game.

If you use any platform other than Windows, this is one a hell of an excuse for a drink.

 Posted by drunkenbatman
    January 30, 2005, at 04:00 PM