The Past
Back in the dark ages of the early 2000s, Microsoft ran a misleading FUD campaign against Linux under the “Get the Facts” banner.
It looks like “Why Microsoft” is the not-much-anticipated sequel, where – in concert with a blog running cutting edge 3.5-year old software – Microsoft will again FUD, mislead and distort as it attacks alternatives to its proprietary lock-in-rich offerings – including some Open Source contenders like Open Office.org.
The Present
As the Gentle and Return Reader knows, one of my favorite past times is pointing out fallicies, distortions or downright lies. The entire “Why Microsoft” site is chock-full, but let’s just look at a few from the “So, You’re Considering OpenOffice.org” PDF Microsoft offers.
When running a mixed software environment you are also running the risk of interoperability issues which could further increase IT and helpdesk costs,inhibit productivity, and generate end user frustration.
I’ve always been amused by how Microsoft tries to play all angles of the “interoperability” card at the same time:
- “Interoperability” is an issue only because Microsoft insists on creating formats that are as difficult as possible to interact with – they underdocument them, use undocumented features, and even add code that intentionally breaks (or reports as broken) competitor products.
- Yet, Microsoft tries to pretend it is all about interoperability
- Despite #2, raise interoperability as FUD here!
OpenOffice.org can read and output many file types, however formatting, calculations,layout, and macros may not be preserved when sharing with non OpenOffice.org users.
Umm, stop me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the exact same thing apply to Microsoft Office users? Just substitute “OpenOffice.org” with “Microsoft Office” and it is just as true. This is the exact sort of thing I was just talking about, where Microsoft – and Microsoft front organizations – conveniently forget to mention the criticism they level against Open Source applies just as equally to their own products.
In fact, didn’t Microsoft just say that there might be interoperability problems with its own products in a mixed software environment? Furthermore, aren’t there “interoperability” problems even among the different versions of Microsoft Office?
The Future
More of the same, of course. Present tactics are the same as the past tactics, save that Microsoft has gotten a little bit more clever in concealing its intentions.
This is just another example of Microsoft FUDing an Open Source competitor. I guess that’s alright if you are involved in a bit of FUD against OpenOffice.org yourself, but personally I don’t approve.
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