XML and (K)Office

[James Robertson]

At 00:48 26/03/1999 , Chris Maden wrote:

  | [Ingo Macherius]
  | > David Megginson <david at megginson.com> wrote at 24 Mar 99, 17:02:
  | > 
  | > > There's also a hot rumour [3] that Microsoft has assigned 37
  | > > programmers to work on a Linux port of MS Office.
  | 
  | Soem quick research on slashdot shows the rumor's evolution.  The
  | first sighting appears to be on ZDnet; they reported that Simson
  | Garfinkle, a _Boston Globe_ columnist and technology writer, mentioned
  | on a radio show that he was in correspondence with some of the
  | developers.  But even if that's true, I can think of a number of
  | reasons why Microsoft might be doing a port internally with no
  | intentions whatsoever of releasing it.  The ZDnet article notes that
  | Office relies heavily on MS's undocumented Win32 API calls, and just
  | porting the app to the standard API calls which could then be handled
  | in emulation on Linux would be a major chore.  Some URLs:

Isn't this the standard strategy of MS at work?

That is, they leak "rumours" that they are about to release
some wonderful new technology.

Everyone, on the basis of this, holds back on purchasing
or obtaining competing (currently available) technology. On
the understanding that MS will be releasing something soon, which
will become the defacto standard.

Also known as "vapourware".

Just look at their attempts to derail NDS (Novell Directory
Services) using the same strategies.

Just some paranoia in the morning,

James


-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
SGML, XML & HTML Consultancy
http://www.steptwo.com.au/
jamesr at steptwo.com.au

"Beyond the Idea"
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