

Google To Microsoft On Office Vs. Docs: Oh Yeah? - cummon
http://www.crn.in/Software-014May010-Google-To-Microsoft-On-Office-Vs-Docs-Oh-Yeah.aspx

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endtime
I worked on the Word Viewer web app for MS last summer (my team also owned the
Word Editor) and complete preservation of rich client formatting was
considered a core feature. Trying to cast it as Microsoft "[touting] its
proprietary document formats" is kind of...silly. Preserving formatting _is_ a
feature, and a useful one at that.

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pieceofpeace
That is not the point the Google spokesperson was trying to make.

The full quote: "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".

So they were complaining about MS making it hard to decode the Word format and
making it tough to preserve format when importing.

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endtime
.docx isn't hard to decode. ;) Though it is hard to render across browsers.

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blasdel
OOXML is no easier to decode than the old memory-dump and COM-based DOC
formats which were comprehensively documented first by third parties and then
Microsoft. It's just like how SWF was trivial to decode long before it was
'opened'. Container formats are _fucking easy_.

What's always been insanely difficult is duplicating the API that the content
interfaces with, bug for bug.

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nailer
As someone who writes an Open Source OpenXML decoder I find it way easier than
COM. The OpenXML specification docs are comprehensive, when there's a problem
- usually detected by OpenOffice's parser as Word is very forgiving - the
specs have a specific answer.

There's good development tools including a Firebox style Xpath app for Word
too.

The main issue is MS Office 2007 and 2010 generating the legacy OpenXML
formats by default, which include a world of possible features including quite
a few from Lotus 123. There's too many edge cases to handle, and this isn't
the right format for docs made this year.

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blasdel
'decode' was probably the wrong word to use there — how about 'consume'?

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pedrokost
It's not even a battle. If a web app wants to be successful it must be fast -
load fast and work fast. Google Docs is blazingly fast, but Office Web takes
too long to load to be of any use.

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rodh257
I actually like Docs.com, I think its formatting is better than Googles, and
part of me likes that you have to click 'save', but I also don't like how long
it takes to save, and also how I can close the browser and lose my work, so I
guess they need to do something there (perhaps save drafts on the fly, and
then when I hit save, commit changes).

But other than that, The formatting features make me think that Google wasn't
even trying...

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stanleydrew
"DocVerse may be in fact Google's most strategic acquisition in its office
productivity software battle with Microsoft."

I don't see how this is a battle. One side is fighting, while the other is
constantly shifting the terms of engagement.

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rick_2047
Can you elaborate on "constantly shifting the terms of engagement"?

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stanleydrew
Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word constantly. But the way I see things
Google isn't a software company. By that I mean Google doesn't sell software.
Microsoft is very much a software company. They need Office and Windows to
make money.

Because Google isn't selling software, there isn't really any competition with
Microsoft in the office productivity space. They're not fighting the same
battle. Microsoft wants to make money from Office, while Google wants to
encourage more applications and content onto the web.

Do you think Google will be upset if Microsoft's docs.com is popular? The
answer to that should tell you everything.

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acg
There is more at stake than this. The danger for Google is that Microsoft
controls the experience of most clients. If Microsoft's services become the
standard then this cuts off Google's revenue and kills their business.

It's easy to see what Microsoft would like, office online users to use
Silverlight "for better rendering" which really means windows and ultimately
IE. This matters to Google in the long term, hence their move into
software/hardware to provide competition.

