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Analysis of IBM's Intentions

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If you haven't read this, it will be thought provoking at the very least. I've known Jonathan for a very long time and find this posting to be a good one.

 Read it here.

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  • Jason

  • Anonymous
    February 12, 2007
    I read until I came to the statement "However, the problem if you are in IT services business is that complexity is your friend. Any reduction in complexity dilutes the value you can offer to your customers. This, in my view, is why IBM seems to be so focused on preventing customers from having to right to choose between two open standards for their document formats." Now anyone who has studied even informally the history of railways knows the joy that the use of several different rail gauges brought to the customers.  They know to the tips of their tightly curled toes, just how much less complex it was for the customers to transfer manually from one railway company's tracks and rolling stock to another to another company's, just to get from one city to another.  They know just how complex it was to have the companies competing with each other on services like delivery times, delivery quality, timetables, etc, instead of competing on such vitally important matters such as which tracks went where. In other words, I don't believe him, I think he's seriously in error, and I can't think of any major technical developments in the history of technology where complexity decreased as a result of having two opposing standards, instead of one. If you doubt me, just ask NASA about the benefits of the decreased complexity involved in using two measuring standards, the metric and the imperial.  Just throw in a few positive complimentary comments on Mars probes such as the Mars Climate Orbiter as well.

  • Anonymous
    February 12, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 12, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 14, 2007
    I think that analyzing intentions is, for Microsoft, a losing game.  There is little rational reason for attempting to make OOXML a standard, especially under the present "we want it free, but not really" licensing, unless one is a monopolist seeking to maintain control of the market.  Anyone who looks at intentions is bound to question why the company opposes a vendor-neutral, cross-platform standardized XML file format and tries to push in its place a standard that is tied to said vendor's applications and operating systems. The records in the court case in Iowa show pretty convincingly that there is a long track record of using these kinds of things to suppress  competition and consumer choice.  Forgive me if I am not convinced that your corporate motives are altruistic here.  History seems to show that your concerns about "choice" relate to a choice of which Microsoft software someone purchases, not which software from any vendor. OOXML seems more a case of "not invented here" and monopoly-preservation than anything else.  Endless cries of "consumer choice" do not a consumer advocate make.

  • Anonymous
    February 14, 2007
    I have never asserted that our motives are altruistic. I've said it many, many times on this blog that our business plan has not deviated for a long time. We will build great software, and sell it. The things we do in response to customer needs, or to advance the state-of-the-art for software are all done within the context of our business plan. There is nothing hidden about that agenda. It was asked of us, by others (competitors, partners, customers, governments) to open up the doc formats for Office. We also had a strategic goal of moving our format to XML-based technology because we believe to be the optimal technology path moving forward. I have never understood why IBM and SUN get such a pass from the broader community on "openness." They do legitimate work with the community - but it is absolutely not altruism. There is long-standing hyperbole around their motivations to "openness." I think it is safe to say that you and I would intepret industry activities differently. Thanks for the comment. Jason