IBM Ethics Chickens Come Home to Roost
For months, IBMers like Bob Sutor and Rob Weir have been making outraged noises regarding perceived ethics issues surrounding the OOXML vote. They have been ‘shocked, SHOCKED’ by all the arm twisting and lobbying surrounding the vote. In fact Sutor went so far as to say “… if you see strange statements being made about OOXML or see bad behavior with respect to trying to get support for it in these last 11 days, I encourage you to let people [...]
OOXML Hoopla: Believe the Bytes, not the Hype
In light of today's news indicating that ECMA's Office Open XML (OOXML) standard will be approved, I recommend this ZDNet blog post on the lessons learned from the process. In case you haven't been following things, OOXML is up for approval before the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It's been a wild and politicized process for what one would think would be a relatively objective task of evaluating a technical standard. There's already the Open Document Format, an ISO approved [...]
Antitrust enforcers from Europe and the US pledge role reversal
The Seattle Times reports that, last week, “there were several interesting developments and comments in the world of antitrust regulation. Consider this a very early pre-race analysis of an upcoming event in the Microsoft-Yahoo acquisition Olympics: The 400-meter regulatory hurdles. On Friday, a trio of top antitrust-enforcement officials from both sides of the Atlantic addressed the American Bar Association and basically pledged a role reversal. The European Union's top antitrust watchdog, Neelie Kroes, took a more conciliatory tone in her [...]
Chinese main mobile phone company to start trial of homegrown TD-SCDMA standard
According to the Associated Press, “China's main mobile phone company said Friday it will launch trial service of the homegrown Chinese next-generation standard next week, possibly moving the huge market closer to the long-anticipated rollout of new services. Companies expect a multibillion-dollar wave of spending on equipment once China awards licenses for third-generation, or 3G, service. But Beijing has delayed a decision while it tries to develop its own system to compete with global standards. China Mobile Communications Corp. said [...]
Gartner expects worldwide PC sales to still grow by double digits
The New York Times writes that “A new report released Tuesday from Gartner, the market research firm, predicts year-over-year PC sales to grow 10.9 percent worldwide. That’s down from a December forecast of 11.6 percent, and the reduction is due to the worsening world economy. While a further downturn could slow growth to single digits, the industry is showing strength across all segments from laptops to desktop replacements, the company said.” According to Yahoo!News, reports that “YouTube has removed several [...]
ODF editor Patrick Durusau points out that ODF will suffer if OXXML’s standards bid fails
CIO reports that “[t]he editor of the Open Document Format (ODF) standard has written a letter that strongly supports recognizing Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) file format as a standard, arguing that if it fails, ODF will suffer. ‘As the editor of OpenDocument, I want to promote OpenDocument, extol its features, urge the widest use of it as possible, none of which is accomplished by the anti-OpenXML position in ISO,’ Patrick Durusau wrote. ‘The bottom line is that OpenDocument, among [...]