There's nothing anti-competitive about having your own damned file format. Sheezus. No there isn't. But there is when you use a cryptic, closed format to lock others out of the market.
Because you can always use RTF format for interop.
Ah yes, that format mentioned in the Novell suit as always changing to fit what Microsoft needs (of course, it's their format). Anyone else has to play catch-up. BTW, RTF sucks.
Nobody's conversions are foolproof -- even MS.
Let me put it this way: If MS were to tell people their "XML" file format, then conversions would be a lot better.
And yet, each day, millions of people could really care less.
It's not my problem if they want to lose time and money. Although I'm often the person who has to look at the Word-produced crap.
Look, you're not going to find anyone but a handful of bigots on Slashdot who are going to argue that there is a better PIM combination than Outlook and Exchange.
Novell Evolution (a.k.a. Ximian), an excellent Email/PIM has a connector for Exchange. They had to reverse-engineer the closed RPC format, but they did it.
Name a single API that Microsoft was able to leverage that wasn't available to competitors.
There are hidden APIs Microsoft was forced to publish by the anti-trust settlement. There are still 113 protocols you have to pay Microsoft to use if you want your software be be able to communicate with MS's server products as efficiently as MS's client products do. The latter is a main subject of the EU antitrust suit, with MS leveraging its desktop monopoly to dominate the server market.
And then explain how MS was able to kick Apple's ass on the Mac platform without access to the same information that Apple developers had.
Word was the first really good word processor for the Mac, and Apple's APIs were well-published.
Reverse-engineer which APIs? Be specific.
Read the Novell suit for one. There are lots of examples in there (quotes):
- Microsoft refused to publish the APIs that were used to place items on the Windows Clipboard, although its own developers had the documentation.
- Further, Microsoft misrepresented that Windows 95 would operate as an exclusively "32-bit" ... Novell relied upon Microsoft's representations and developed its applications to run on an entirely 32-bit system. ... Microsoft's own applications developers knew that Windows 95 would not be an entirely 32-bit operating system and, as a consequence, Microsoft was able to release its office productivity applications almost immediately upon the release of Windows 95.
- Microsoft refused to disclose technical specifications that were required toovercome an operating system flaw known as the "64k [limitation] ... Microsoft's API documentation did not disclose sufficient information to cure this limitation. ... delaying the shipment of WordPerfect for Windows ... By contrast, because Microsoft's own applications developers had access to complete specifications for the operating system, comparable features of Microsoft Word consumed only a small percentage of the limited memory, and Microsoft experienced no delay in reaching the market. [I used that Word Perfect, and this perfectly explains what I experienced]
Read the government (US and EU) anti-trust judgements for more information.
Imagine my surprise to learn that WordPerfect owns keys on the keyboard. Whodathunk it? /SARCASM
I didn't mean "not good" as MS did something bad, but "not good" as in it was simply unfortunate for WordPerfect.
No there isn't. But there is when you use a cryptic, closed format to lock others out of the market.
Yet more lies from the Hate-MS-First crowd. Word's DocFile format was invented at a time in which it was lagging behind WordPerfect. It couldn't possibly "lock others out of market" share which it didn't possess.
Ah yes, that format mentioned in the Novell suit as always changing to fit what Microsoft needs (of course, it's their format). Anyone else has to play catch-up. BTW, RTF sucks.
Just out of curiosity, when was the last time that MS changed the RTF spec? I happen to know -- and I'm curious to see whether you do -- because the point you're arguing won't help your case.
Let me put it this way: If MS were to tell people their "XML" file format, then conversions would be a lot better.
Rrrright -- and if Apple documented its iTunes interop, conversations would be a lot better, too. But I don't blame them for that -- because they developed their platform.
It's not my problem if they want to lose time and money. Although I'm often the person who has to look at the Word-produced crap
LMFAO! Even your own company doesn't agree with you.
Novell Evolution (a.k.a. Ximian), an excellent Email/PIM has a connector for Exchange. They had to reverse-engineer the closed RPC format, but they did it.
Like I said, only a few bigots are going to make such assertions. The rest of the world will simply laugh and get on with business with Outlook and Exchange.
There are hidden APIs Microsoft was forced to publish by the anti-trust settlement. There are still 113 protocols you have to pay Microsoft to use if you want your software be be able to communicate with MS's server products as efficiently as MS's client products do. The latter is a main subject of the EU antitrust suit, with MS leveraging its desktop monopoly to dominate the server market.
Nice try, charlatan. Here are the apps from your own reference that use so-called "undocumented APIs":
- Internet Explorer
- Microsoft Messenger
- Outlook Express
- Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine
- Windows Media Player
MS Office isn't on that list. Which proves you are full of crap.
Read the Novell suit for one. There are lots of examples in there (quotes):
None of these issues were (or are) required in order to get a competitive word processor up and running.
- Besides the basic Clipboard items (text, image), the only other interesting format is OLE object (ie. Excel chart) -- and only MS Office uses that clipboard format. Quite obviously, you only care about that issue if you're interop'ing directly with MS Office -- in which case Novell's complaint is moot. WordPerfect wasn't seeking to do that.
- As for whether Win95 was purely 32-bit, from an app's standpoint, it is. How this could possibly hindered Novell is ridiculous.
- Regarding the 64K limitation, this, too, is absurd. MS Office doesn't use built-in resources (menus, dialogs, etc) because it encountered the same problem with early versions of Windows. The "workaround" consists of drawing its own menus and dialogs -- something that is very clearly disclosed in Windows API docs (lookup owner-draw windows).