Lock In?

Posted Oct 22, 2008 14:15 UTC (Wed) by Xanadu (guest, #1215)
Parent article: Why OpenOffice.org Failed - and What to Do About It (ComputerWorld UK)

I don't understand how this is "lock in". They can insist on Open Standards all they want, but they would then have to port over all their "apps" to those new open standards, would they not? They still would have to re-invent their wheel no matter what they chose.

Am I missing something here?

Missing the point

Posted Oct 22, 2008 14:24 UTC (Wed) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, the key point is that by using proprietary formats/interfaces, EVERY time you want to switch to another program, you pay huge costs. In contrast, using open standards, the switching cost is tiny (ideally zero). Which is why proprietary formats and interfaces subvert the usual role of competition: Normally, competition would force suppliers to continuously lower costs and improve quality, because customers would otherwise switch, but if they cannot effectively switch, suppliers can have high rents and low quality with near impunity.

Missing the point

Posted Oct 22, 2008 14:29 UTC (Wed) by frankie (subscriber, #13593) [Link] (1 responses)

That also motivates 3000 pages of standard description for OpenXML and many obfuscated details: a huge ramp for a truly OXML compatible third party product, resulting in an another lock-in format but blessed as a standard one.

Missing the point

Posted Oct 23, 2008 12:56 UTC (Thu) by hmh (subscriber, #3838) [Link]

And, when that fails EVEN after it did become an standard, take over the other one (ODF) which is not of stellar quality either. I shudder to think of what the already hideous ODF will become in five years.

The more I see of it, the more I am convinced that SGML or a human-usable restricted set of it (say, Docbook, and nowadays DocBook XML and XHTML strict) is the only thing we can really trust to endure for 20+ years.

That, and TeX (and LaTeX) documents without too many obscure extra modules. Go figure!

Lock In?

Posted Oct 22, 2008 14:39 UTC (Wed) by chaneau (guest, #6674) [Link] (5 responses)

In this particular case, there was no technical reasons not to switch, after all they did it in France, and I don't imagine it was any simpler.

The truth is that Microsoft spent "huge" sums of money to prevent that kind of migration, in fact the guy who is in charge of free software in the federal government is a friend of mine and you would not believe what he can tell you about those tactics. Were we in Africa that would be called corruption, but as we are an advanced democracy it is disguised as lobbying and interoperability :-)

Not so long ago, I was responsible for the IT in a small town (~20.000 inhabitants), we had no budget te renew our Microsoft Office licences in the schools, so I decided to give OO.org a try, eventually everybody was convinced that it was possible to switch, then the guy from Microsoft came in, offered free licences (Office, Windows...), added a few free PC and invited the mayor for a short family vacation disguised as a "Seminary".

To make a long story short, the schools are still using Microsoft products.

Lock In?

Posted Oct 22, 2008 17:59 UTC (Wed) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (3 responses)

> In this particular case, there was no technical reasons not to switch,
> after all they did it in France, and I don't imagine it was any simpler.

You're wrong. The study states plainly that the entity trialing the switch used extensively access, visual basic macros, "office applications" (applications developed within office), sharepoint, etc

You should not underestimate the drag capability of the "advanced" facilities software vendors propose (and MS is pretty good at it). A well-managed IT organisation that religiously hunted down activeX, refused to deploy sharepoint, made its people deploy business code in backend servers instead of using access+vba shortcuts will have no difficulty switching vendors when the cost is right (and it is now). It will have used a standard browser as the information system access tool when MS tries to trick you in using Office instead.

A badly managed organization OTOH will have used all those features because is was "easy" and "free/already paid for" and will blame its unability to switch products on "uncertain TCO/ROI" when in fact the huge sums they continue to pay to the historical provider are the actual bill of all this "free" "easy" automation. And it will end up with huge citrix farms of vista+office 200x and wonder why others are not in the same license pit hell.

When all's said, the biggest functional difference between ODF and OOXML is all the business automation/sharepoint sugar present in the second and not in the first one. In other words, ODF lacked all the gadgets MS uses to install rampant lock-in. That's why MS fought it to the death.

Lock In?

Posted Oct 23, 2008 6:03 UTC (Thu) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link] (1 responses)

Are you so sure France didn't have any of these issues?

Lock In?

Posted Oct 23, 2008 8:25 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

I'm fairly sure a police force (like in France) is less VBA, sharepoint and access happy than a financial institution.

Lock In?

Posted Oct 26, 2008 7:54 UTC (Sun) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link]

Exactly, that's what I've seen as well. Especially the 'already paid for'
thing is big - I was at a government organization which switched to using
Activedirectory and Sharepoint because it was essentially free - MS had
given them a deal when they bought Office & Windows - any other services
would be 'free'... Sounds pretty anti-competitive to me, but hey, I'm no
Neely Kroes.

Lock In?

Posted Oct 23, 2008 16:42 UTC (Thu) by freemars (subscriber, #4235) [Link]

To make a long story short, the schools are still using Microsoft products. -- and the mayor has scheduled another OO.org evaluation for early next year. ;-)