I like Yahoo!. I really hope the shareholders decline Microsoft’s offer. Blech, MS has wanted a piece of Yahoo! for a while.

Microsoft just won’t quit. Now they’re trying to make OOXML an ISO standard. Please help stop this.

Here’s how I explained it in Open Source Software for Libraries:

The state of Massachusetts in 2005 announced new IT standards that required its 80,000 employees and 173 agencies to adopt open file formats. The decision didn’t specify the applications to be used, just the format of the electronic documents they created, stored and exchanged #. In making the decision, the state also had to establish a test for openness. What Massachusetts settled on was surprisingly simple #:

• It must be published and subject to peer review
• It must be subject to joint stewardship
• It must have no or absolutely minimal legal restrictions attached to it.

The result, and the subject of considerable controversy, was that the state found the ISO-certified Open Document Format along with Adobe’s PDF to meet that test, while Microsft’s formats, including its Office Open XML format, didn’t #. The critical failure of Microsoft’s OOXML format was that the license didn’t allow others to build applications that could both read and write the file format, meaning that Microsoft would be the only legal vendor of full-feature applications that used Office Open XML #.

Microsoft applied pressure, and a lot of campaign money, and the state has now reversed its 2006 decision on OOXML. But it hasn’t changed the underlying problems. Imagine 30 years into the future, imagine your vital records are stored in proprietary formats that your local government can’t afford to license anymore. Now imagine your kid needs a copy of her birth certificate that can’t be accessed, because while the data is theoretically yours and the state’s, the vendor has been suing governments that read their file format without a license.

ooxml, open formats, free software, iso, standards, document formats, microsoft, tyranny, monopoly

I’ve been citing pieces of branding consultant james Torio’s master’s thesis for some time now. But because the thesis is long, and I want to cite a few small pieces, and those pieces aren’t directly URL addressable, I’m quoting them here. Clickable URLs are added, but everything else should be exactly as Torio wrote it. (Also related: Why There’s No Escaping The Blog and MSN Spaces Isn’t The Blogging Service For Me.)

In December 2004, Microsoft announced that it would also get into the Blogging business by offering MSN Spaces, software, which would enable Internet users to create Blogs. The next day Xeni Jardin a co-editor of the Blog Boing Boing, wrote an article entitled “7 Dirty Blogs.” Jardin wrote about titles of Blogs she tried to create using MSN Spaces, and how the built-in censor in Microsoft’s software reacted.

She was able to create a Blog entitled “World of Poop” and “Educational Smoking Crack: A How-To Guide for Teens.” The software would not allow her to create a Blog called “Pornography and the Law” or “Corporate Whore Chronicles.” According to David Kirkpatrick and Daniel Roth, “Within the first hour of Jardin’s post, five Blogs had linked to it, including the site of the widely read San Jose Mercury News columnist, Dan Gillmor. By the end of the day, there were dozens of Blogs pointing readers to ‘7 Dirty Blogs,’ with a proliferation of links that over the next few weeks topped 300. There were Italian Blogs and Chinese Blogs and Blogs in Greek, German, and Portuguese. There were Blogs with names like Tie-Dyed Brain Waves, Stubborn Like a Mule, and LibertyBlog. Each added its own tweak. ‘Ooooh, that’s what I want: a Blog that doesn’t allow me to speak my mind,’ wrote a Blogger called Kung Pow Pig. The conversation had clearly gotten out of Microsoft’s hands.”

The man who came to Microsoft’s rescue was Robert Scoble. He is a software evangelist for Microsoft who writes a Blog called the ”Scobleizer.“ According to Kirkpatrick and Roth, ”When it came to the criticism emanating from Boing Boing, Scoble simply agreed. “MSN Spaces isn’t the Blogging service for me,” he wrote. Nobody at Microsoft asked Scoble to comment; he just did it on his own, adding that he would make sure that the team working on “Spaces” was aware of the complaints. And he kept revisiting the issue on his Blog. As the anti-Microsoft crowd cried “censorship,” the nearly 4,000 Blogs linking to Scoble were able to see his running commentary on how Microsoft was reacting. “I get comments on my Blog saying, ‘I didn’t like Microsoft before, but at least they’re listening to us,’The Blog is the best relationship generator you’ve ever seen.” His famous boss agrees. “It’s all about openness,” said Chairman Bill Gates of Microsoft’s public Blogs like Scobleizer. “People see them as a reflection of an open, communicative culture that isn’t afraid to be self-critical.”

The following is an entry from the Blog gapingvoid.com about Robert Scoble entitled “TROGGING: Trust + Blogging i.e. ‘Using Blogs to build trust and transparency.’”

It occurs to me that my opinion of Microsoft has risen considerably in the last year. Not that I ever belonged to the “Bill Gates is Satan” crowd. I never was into computers enough to really care whether a guy in Redmond wrote the code, or some guy in Toledo. The same way I don’t really care who made my telephone or my microwave, so long as it works. It’s not an area where I project a lot of myself in to.

Still, there is something quite monolithic about Microsoft, and one always keeps an eyebrow raised when something gets that big, quite rightly.

So what happened? A new product? Nope. I still use the same Windows 98 and creaky, old Dell as always. Great new advertising campaign? Nope. Not watching much TV these days. Bill Gates gave all his money to cancer research? Nope. Not seen that much mention of him in the media recently.

What happened in there’s this guy called Robert Scoble who has a blog that I’ve been reading a lot this last 6-9 months. Robert works for Microsoft. Mark seems like a smart, honest, regular guy who holds down a job, same as the rest of us. He just happens to work for Microsoft. Robert writes about his job and his company the same way I would if I worked for them and liked my job. Informal, informed, friendly, it gives real insight about his company where possible- he tries to be as open and insightful as he can without disclosing trade secrets.

It other words, he seems sane, reasonable, trustworthy, human and somebody who knows what he’s talking about. Which to me helps make Microsoft seem likewise.

One guy and his blog, doing more real good for his company than any multimillion dollar ad agency campaign could ever hope to achieve.

As somebody in the ad business, I find the implications staggering.

Long live Robert Scoble, King of the Troggers!

Microsoft felt the backlash from the Blogosphere, and to their credit they did not issue press releases or create new advertisements for damage control, rather a Blogger who was objective joined in on the conversation; he worked with Microsoft’s customers and listened to what they had to say: building Microsoft’s brand equity. Blogs can be effective because of their transparency. Readers comment, enabling a conversation rather than a company sending a one-way message.

blog controversy, blogging, blogs are conversations, censorship, community relations, james torio, microsoft, MSN Spaces, PR, Robert Scoble, scobleizer

Once upon a time Microsoft was the gorilla to beat. Once upon a time we thought Google could do it.

Perhaps not any more. Amazon has dropped Google’s search results from their A9 search aggregator in favor of Microsoft’s Live search, and while Yahoo!’s on again, off again partnership talks with Microsoft appear dead after Y!’s announcement Thursday of a partnership with eBay, Microsoft still hasn’t given up on the notion.

The Yahoo! news may dull my argument, but look how quickly the board changed, how easily these companies switched allegiances or considered partnering with Microsoft, a company known for swallowing its partners.

Google may or may not truly depend on the goodwill of its customers, but the moment its image turns from all-knowing and happy to big and evil could rearrange the chess board.

allegiance, competition, ebay, google, gorilla, microsoft, partnership, yahoo, yahoo!

What’s sadder than people in Burundi earning an average of only $90 a year? It might be Bill Gates‘ criticism of MIT’s efforts to bring affordable, networked computers to the poorest countries of the world in hopes of improving education (and communication and healthcare and more).

The challenge is enormous: the technology needs to be durable, require low-power (and be easily rechargeable), as easy to use as an egg timer, have networking in a land without infrastructure, and be cheap, cheap, cheap. Yet somehow, the MIT folks have figured it out, and the project — known to most of us as the $100 laptop project — seems to be on its way to success.

It’s the sort of thing that you’d figure a philanthropic guy like Bill Gates would be on top of. But alas, he seems not to understand. Gizmodo, ArsTechnica, TeleRead, and others are all reporting the world’s richest man went critical over the MIT project.

What are Big G’s complaints?

• The screen is too small
  Hmmm…it’s the same size as on the $1000 Ultra Mobile PCs that Microsoft’s pushing.

• Doesn’t have broadband
  Um, well, Bill doesn’t work in telecomm, but you’d think he’d know that there ain’t much broadband in Africa or in poor countries anywhere.

• Doesn’t have a hard drive (it uses flash-based storage)
  Apparently he worries that it’ll get filled with MP3s.

• The charger requires cranking
  It’s just a generalization, but people usually turn the lights on at night if they can, but there aren’t many in Africa or in poor countries anywhere. Maybe Bill has a line on power fairies?

• Ongoing support, maintenance, and network access costs are far more expensive than the hardware
  Right. So, Bill has first hand experience with the hidden costs of Windows, no?

I’m not sure what Bill thinks should be done instead, and I’m kinda thinking that his remarks will be recorded in history as being about as stunningly stupid as the old “who needs more than 640K” line. Ars Technica’s Nate Anderson was as dumbfounded as the rest of us:

It’s hard to see how a philanthropist could not love a device designed to put basic computing power in the hands of every child on earth, but Gates reached deep down inside and found a way

Perhaps what Bill really wanted to complain about was that the $100 laptops don’t run Windows and that Microsoft hadn’t figured out how to profit off of them yet.

0 computer, 0 laptop, bill gates, billg, harsh, harsh words, microsoft, mit laptop, mobile computing, origami, umpc

It’s good to know Hard to Find 800 Numbers.com is there when you need it. Here are the top five:

800 numbers, hard to find 800 numbers, customers service, customer support, support line, amazon, microsoft, yahoo!, ebay, paypal, contacting amazon, contacting microsoft, contacting yahoo!, contacting ebay, contacting paypal

Donna Wentworth is now saying what I’ve been saying for over a year now. Digital Rights Management (DRM) isn’t about preventing copyright violations by ne’er-do-wells, it’s about eliminating legal me2me fair use and locking in customers. In Your PC == A Toaster, Wentworth quotes Don Marti saying:

Isn’t it time to drop the polite fiction that MSFT and other incumbent IT and CE [CE = consumer electronics -- Casey] vendors are only doing DRM because of big, bad Hollywood? …[Having] “Hollywood” clamoring for harsh DRM (based on technical facts from the IT industry) actually helps the current market leaders…

With DRM, MSFT and Apple can keep their customers from switching back and forth (or maybe to Linux), and CE vendors can’t lock out $39 Chinese DVD players, but can at least collect a tax on them.

What could have been said is that DRM is like a toaster that only toasts Pepperidge Farm bread. You’ll pay full price for both the toaster and the bread, but they’ll sick the FBI on you if you figure out a way to toast a Thomas’ brand english muffin in the thing.

Okay, so I’m not claiming priority over Wentorth, but here are two related stories: What Does Proprietary Mean, Anyway? and Hilary Rosen: Sock Puppet.

tags: big money, copyfight, copyright, digital rights management, donna wentworth, drm, drm’d toaster, drmed toaster, hollywood, microsoft, proprietary, toaster, toaster drm, toaster hacks

Gizmodo has two pictures of a young Bill Gates vogueing on a desk with 5.25-inch floppies and a circa-1986 PC monitor. Oh, wait, is that a Mac on his desk behind him?

The pics were reportedly published in Tiger Beat, and Gizmodo is offering a reward for the original issue.

update David Heisler wrote to Gizmodo to offer this correction and detail:

[Those] are not from Tiger Beat. According to snopes.com, these images are actually publicity photos taken of the then 30-year-old Bill Gates coincident with the initial release of Microsoft Windows in 1985. The Corbis photo archive identifies their depiction thusly: “Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, reclines on his desk in his office soon after the release of Windows 1.0. 1985 Bellevue, Washington, USA.” The Corbus link indicates the following information: Photo AAHW001037 Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, throws a Windows 1.0 floppy disk in his office soon after the product’s release. © Deborah Feingold/CORBIS

bill gates, billg, windows, trying to be cool, gizmodo, 1986, microsoft, looking good, trying too hard