Shapeshifter – One
I just read this article, and I’m a little frustrated by it. Here we go, step by painful step:
Until now, the majority of AA staff have used Open Office, with a small number also using the Microsoft product.
Problem: if you don’t declare and enforce a standard, things immediately become complicated. If everyone uses OOo, transferring internally with the ODF format, and distributing externally with the PDF format, then there are no problems.
â??[But] there are issues which come with some open-source products,â? says the AAâ??s CIO, Doug Wilson.
Now this sounds incredibly suspect, it sounds remarkably like rhetoric or even propoganda being dribbled from the mouth of someone who once worked for Microsoft, as well as having an employment history including Wang (now gen-i, my former employer) – a staunch Microsoft house, and EDS – another staunch Microsoft house, but also a staunchly idiotic company gunning for the lowest price, replete with mutants and miscreants, the absolute sewer of the industry and the scourge of real IT professionals worldwide.
â??The first, with Open Office, is compatibility â?? sharing information with Microsoft products, both within the organisation and with external parties. A dual world is complicated and, whether people like it or not, Microsoft is a standard.
Hmm. OOo will save to the .doc format, however Microsoft has just made that difficult for OOo and even themselves by introducing their OpenXML format, so Word 2007 saves by default to .docx, and users of Office 2003 and earlier are simply shit out of luck. Unless they use a plugin, a convertor, or ask their 2007 friend to save in .doc. Regardless, OOo’s .doc compatibility, while not perfect, is there. So regarding sharing information with Microsoft products, the above fact as well as the Sun ODF Plugin makes that argument crumble just a little. So let’s move on to some more specific points
*both within the organisation – as said this is a relative non-issue
*and with external parties – you shouldn’t be distributing your documentation externally in .doc format, that’s just dumb and stupid, in fact they should make a new word for it like dumpid. You distribute in PDF.
*Microsoft is a standard – yes, a proprietary one that is NOT ISO/IEC certified, ie it’s not an international standard, it’s merely a de facto standard that will be going the way of the dodo.
â??Second, you have no idea where open-source products are going, whereas vendors like Microsoft provide a roadmap for the future.
More nonsense rhetoric! Let’s look at some facts
1) Let’s not mention all the Longhorn roadmap promises that Microsoft reneged on and were excluded from Vista, leaving Vista as ultimately an even more irritating and obstructive version of XP, oh with some pretty graphics to play into the OS-X envy game
2) Open Office has a readily available roadmap, and a history of keeping to it.
The arguments of a former Microsoft employee, and a person with a career at known Microsoft partners, is just a little jittery at this point.
â??Itâ??s about futures, planning and integration.â?
The future, like it or not, is ODF. Unless Microsoft’s naughty behaviour keeps going unchecked.
Wilson says Microsoft Office is not any cheaper, but that it was almost impossible to work out what open-source was actually costing because of issues such as incompatibility and training.
As a CIO, Wilson should have the metrics in place to more accurately compare the two. In this case we can assume that either:
* Mr Wilson is not a CIO worth his salt – having EDS on the CV just strengthens this concern
* Mr Wilson still plays golf with some of his old Microsoft buddies
Either way, I smell a rat. A rat named bias.
The AAâ??s agreement with Microsoft, for around 500 seats, includes home-usage rights, so staff can use the software at home. â??Thatâ??s important,â? says Wilson. The AA has 1,000 staff.
*YAWN*
The article makes it seem like the sharply dressed Microsoft sales drones had such a hard sell – more bullshit! Microsoft has been doing these kinds of licencing deals for years. When I was a student I could get ANY piece of Microsoft software for free or very cheap – only that when I finished my studies I technically could no longer use the software and had to buy it (if I opted to). When I was working at Computerland, I got copies of Windows2000 and XP with my own VLK’s, again, when I left the company I technically could no longer use the software. Campus and Employee Home licencing situations are really nothing special, they’re just another way for Microsoft to indoctrinate, and really are just a pain in the arse compared to a FOSS licencing situation.
The AA is also considering using Microsoft Sharepoint Server to maintain some of its websites. This would allow Office Pro users to maintain the sites directly from within Office and Word.
Oh for Jehova’s sake. Not Sharepoint. That overglorified bastardised remnants of Great Plains and a wiki on steroids that ties you further into Windows Server and IIS.
Technically speaking, I have no gripe with Sharepoint itself, it’s really a fine piece of technology. What really grinds my gears is the many times over I’ve seen it poorly implimented, especially from a non technical point of view – usually some idiot manager with a moronic powertrip demands it be setup in a very restrictive and counter-intuitive way, which then makes the Sharepoint portal flop. Having spent five digits (for the full blown version), the manager will stick to his/her guns and waste company money doing roadshows trying to convince the masses that all the roadblocks don’t make it clumsy, no, they enable synergy in the workflow process going forward!
â??A decision has still to be made on that,â? says Wilson.
Quit teasing. A Microsoft friend will buy you a beer at the golf club and that will be that. This is a foregone conclusion.
Don’t get me wrong, I recognise that Open Office is not entirely mature and is lacking in some areas, I admit that Microsoft Office is a finely polished product that hasn’t done anything *really* worthwhile for the last few versions. The reasoning of the NZAA’s CIO, who is a former Microsoft employee and therefore in my eyes clearly biased, just don’t cut the mustard with me.
Also, he won a competition run by the publisher of the article.
/thickplot
