The 2010 Productivity Tool Bonanza - Microsoft, Google, Zoho & Open Standards

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What Open Standards?

Am curious to know what open standards you are referring to...if you are talking about Google's attempt to use html and javascript to render the user interface of their office productivity apps, this is a sad case of missing the forrest for the trees! The question that you need to ask is whether the average user cares if the user interface is rendered in html or any so-called proprietary RIA technology like Silverlight or Flash. Does any one know/care about what technology or standard was used in the Microsoft Office UI layer?
What is more important vis.a.vis "Open Standards" is how Google, Zoho et al save and store documents in - so that the user can rest assured that in the event that vendor goes out of business, he can still continue to access his information in its native form. This imperative is what forced Microsoft to move to an XML-based document format and further, release complete documentation about its binary formats.
On the other hand, Google and Zoho has released precisely zero information on the formats in which they store their documents...just providing an option to export to Microsoft Office or Open Office formats is hardly adequate to assauge such concerns...

Also, the popular belief that web-based office suites like Google Docs are more open than desktop-bound versions like Microsoft Office is a myth - developers have multiple options to extend Microsoft Office and embed their plug-ins/add-ins into these suites - on the other hand, there is no way to do any such thing in Google Docs or Zoho...

Posted by: sumanthr   Posted on: 09/27/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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