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).
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. Back then, Word was on the receiving end of what it's dishing out now. Then, WordPerfect had the monopoly marketshare, now Word has it.
Just out of curiosity, when was the last time that MS changed the RTF spec?
Recently, IIRC. But the RTF problem I'm referring to happened in the early 90s when MS was trying to make Word dominant by any means necessary.
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.
Huh? Anyway, I know one thing Apple's doing that I don't like. Real found a way for people to purchase DRM music from their store and play it on an iPod. Apple then posted new firmware that killed that ability to use other stores besides iTunes. This would be considered anti-competitive if Apple had a monopoly position in the market, and a case could possibly be made for that with the iPod (although probably a weak one given the plethora of options available now).
LMFAO! Even your own company doesn't agree with you.
You're right. I'm pretty good at Word, having used it a lot since the mid 90s, and the document sucked compared to what I could have done in FrameMaker in half the time. And I'm not even that good with FrameMaker (but damn good with InDesign). Often, companies just go with what they know even when it's not cost-effective, Microsoft products often being a prime example. Except for Visio, that rocks, although MS just bought it when it was already a mature product. Visual Studio .NET is pretty good too. It locks up sometimes, but I've never lost data because of that.
The rest of the world will simply laugh and get on with business with Outlook and Exchange.
With all the inherent problems. Crappy clustering in Exchange, bad security in Outlook, etc.
Nice try, charlatan. Here are the apps from your own reference that use so-called "undocumented APIs":
You asked for "a single API that Microsoft was able to leverage that wasn't available to competitors" and I gave you a reference to 272 of them, plus 113 protocols.
Besides the basic Clipboard items (text, image), Which WP couldn't do.
How this could possibly hindered Novell is ridiculous. They programmed based on what MS promised, which was different from what MS delivered (while MS itself programmed to what was delivered).
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. Exactly, MS knew the problem was there and wrote around it before Windows was even released, while they put out the non-working programming guidelines for other developers to use and discover this on their own. They wrote the OS, they had a responsibility to tell others how to program for their OS. They used this secret to gain an unfair competitive advantage.