I read a wee article today on VNU Net (www.v3.co.uk) that "IBM is reportedly dumping Microsoft Office in favour of its own version of Open Office, Lotus Symphony" and again I felt a bit of a rant coming on.
I've sat down now, but that hasn't removed the desire to rant.
I like to think I'm not a geek, but I do like good technology. Let's remember, from the Compact OED, is defined as:
technology
• noun (pl. technologies) 1 the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. 2 the branch of knowledge concerned with applied sciences.
— DERIVATIVES technological adjective technologically adverb technologist noun.
— ORIGIN Greek tekhnologia ‘systematic treatment’.
So.... 'the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes'... so let us assume the 'application of scientific knowledge' is the software...be it MS Office or Lotus Symphony or Google Docs or Open Office or whatever.
The 'practical purposes' are removed by virtue of the fact that the documents produced by the different software systems are never 100% cross-compatible. Now, one could easily argue that none of them are perfect... but by having large endorsements of different packages means that smaller companies and inidividuals are increasingly going to diverge from one package to purchase and/or use, by choice, the one they know. Which will be the one they experience every day at work (at IBM, or Microsoft, or Google, or any organisation that uses their software).
Shurely (hic) it wouldn't be too much to ask for the different software-makers to collaborate on producing the definitively perfect office package? They could brand it differently and price it differently to tie in to the other software or Operating Systems if they must (e.g. Windows, Leopard, Linux, Chrome...) but at least they would all be compatible with each other across machines of different ages. That, as anyone who has tried to open a document at home done on Office 2007 at work, when the home package is Office 2003, is not always simple.
So slapped wrists and eternal shame on IBM for trying to get their staff to use Lotus Symphony rather than MS Office. If any of us outside the Big Blue do business with them, we'll now have to make sure our documents are saved appropriately and have appropriate plug-ins to open their documents and...
...and while we're talking about it, why can't all mobile manufacturers use the same operating system... it's irritating enough trying to format for the hundreds of different handset screen sizes and resolutions currently on the market, without also having completely different systems every time you upgrade a phone.
I've just upgraded from a 'quite good phone' to a 'smart phone' - within the same nameless Finnish brand - and yet basic functionality from the old phone doesn't exist on the new one. One would have thought that the most basic usability testing any software or hardware manufacturer would do would be to ensure old habits are easily translated onto the new system.
But, harping back to Office, the 2007 version proved that the Seattle giants do not know their arse from their 2003 elbow... and I now spend up to 10 minutes hunting for certain functionality. Surely (again, so soon?) it would have been better to provide the new interface on 2007 as the default interface, but allow users to switch back to the previous one (where they know where to find things)? That way they could educate new users in new 'best practices' without irritating the hell out of those of us who were very very used to the previous incarnation.
So slapped wrists and eternal shame on IBM for trying to get their staff to use Lotus Symphony rather than MS Office. If any of us outside the Big Blue do business with them, we'll now have to make sure our documents are saved appropriately and have appropriate plug-ins to open their documents
ReplyDeleteThis is an extremely naive comment. Why should IBM shamed for this move? Their software is based on open office and the international standard Open Document Format (ODF), which was granted status as an industry open standard years before Microsoft tried to plug their new OfficeOpenXML format. The only reason there was any difficulty in the past in opening these documents was because of Microsoft's arrogance, and their determination to ignore standards to maintain a monopoly on the industry. If anyone should be shamed, it should be Microsoft for complicating things by trying to create a new standard when a perfectly good, widely used standard already existed.
What's more, is that IBM Symphony is free. Should we really shame a company for trying to reduce licence costs in the current economic climate (yes it has hit big firms like IBM too) when equally good software is available free of charge?
Both Open Office and Symphony have made great strides on the compatability front. As it is, they can both open existing office formats (the new symphony claims to even work with Excel's VB Macro's - traditionally a sticking point). Can the same be said of MS Office? As you correctly mention, 2003 can't even open 2007 documents without installing a plugin, and Open document support is only available through a third-party plugin.
You might not realise it, but the ODF format is actually pretty popular worldwide. Many governments adopted it, as they believed that they should be sharing their data in open formats. I wish all governments would do it, and stop wasting tax payers money on unnecessary software licences.
MS has for years, been getting away with, making the lives of their customers difficult by trying to force their proprietry formats on the world in these times when open data standards are becoming more and more widespread. I applaud any business that takes the brave step towards cutting their escalating IT Licence costs by adopting open software, and in doing so also provides data in a format that can be read, and displayed perfectly, by software that their customers do not need to pay out for.
why can't all mobile manufacturers use the same operating system
I get the impression you like the odd monopoly in the market place? I find this surprising as a monopoly has a negative effect on encouraging price reductions or inspiring innovation through competition. And by the way, having tried most of the current phone OS's, none are perfect. I would heavily suggest doing a lot of research before going with a product, and select the one with the least compromises for your requirements.
Fair enough... I won't argue with you. My irritation is not having a 'one-size fits all' solution.
ReplyDeleteIt would be as if every vehicle manufacturer decided to put the gears in a different order, or the clutch-brake-accelerator in a different order (or on the windscreen). Or each model of car required a different type of gasoline. This did, of course, occur in the early years, but fortunately you now know that if you go to a petrol or gas station, you will get the standard unleaded 95 octane stuff everywhere.
So, innovation is good. Open Source is lovely. I'm highly in favour. I'm merely asking all the big software companies to try and be a little joined-up about things. Endless competition is not always a good thing... should we have dozens of private rail networks or one network upon which all trains can run? Should we have dozens of different technologies in televisions, or one technology that can show programmes from all broadcasters?
To a large extent the homogenisation has already occurred - back in the eighties the idea of an IBM-compatible PC was only beginning to take off, which helped innovation as small software companies knew they only had to make one version (for IBM compatible PCs) rather than dozens, to cover the business and domestic markets of NCR, Compaq, HP, Acorn, Sinclairs etc.
So perhaps I should have said, rather than 'shame on IBM', 'shame on the lot of them' for deliberately creating different versions of software, with none of them truly being the ideal product.
The World-Wide Web did that - i.e. homogenised an existing system so that all users could publish in a format compatible and legible to all. By no means is it perfect, but at least we don't have to log on to 'www' one moment and then switch across to 'iw' the other (the 'interweb') and then to 'gcns' ('global communications network system') the next.
One place. One format. One system... that works for all. Is that too much to ask?
Yes, there should be complete compatability between the different software, but for that the criticism should again fall on Microsoft (for creating yet another format), and the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) - They should never have allowed MS's Office Open XML to be passed as a standard when it offers little/nothing over the already approved ODF format. The whole point of standards is that they get everyone working towards the same result. By accepting a duplicate format they have confused matters.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I am being more critical of MS than IBM here is that IBM could've gone down the route of creating their own document format and starting up another pointless format war, but instead they had the sense to look at existing standards and make use of them for the benefit of all.
Unfortunately MS never seems to care about any thing but their own agenda. Just look at how long it took them to make Internet Explorer standards compliant. And even then, their implementation of the standards manages to give web developers headaches!
Again - fair point. I dislike IBM because I have to use LotusNotes and only the most recent version (I have v.8, but started on v.4) can be said to work anything like other systems, be intuitive and do what it should.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes - that doesn't mean that everything they do is equally bad, but it does leave a sour taste in my mouth.
However, I'm curious (in a devil's advocate kind of way) as to whether the ISO standards are always the best? I don't have the data and cannot comment in any depth on the subject, (I know the ISO 9000 quality standard is not very popular for being cumbersome and not always promoting 'best practice'), but am curious as to whether or not ISO had published standards on video formatting (Beta v. VHS) or TV resolution (400 lines in the USA compared to 625 in the UK and Europe)...