RE: Office 2003 Beta

[Bill Briggs <web@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 1:52 PM -0800 22/03/03, DW Emory wrote:
>If you want to have it all and you accept the Microsoft approach, 
>you're stuck with Microsoft stinking Word and specific types of 
>Windoze platforms. If that isn't an overt attempt to preempt/hijack 
>an emerging universal standard, what is it?

  I fail to see how this even warrants a debate. Internal MS documents 
that have been available on the web for years clearly spell out the 
strategy that MS has taken. (Start here to discover their intentions 
<http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.php>)

  The "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" approach is not only spelled out 
in those documents, it's evident in their practice of recent years. 
They desire control over the protocol space, the standards space, and 
anything else they can control. These are not some kind of fantasy 
Dan has concoted in the haze of watching too much reality TV. They 
are real.

  In the University where I work they are trying to take over with 
"gifts" of software to squeeze out Word Perfect/Quattro Pro and 
Novell, among others - they wish to remove choice, no matter what 
that choice is. The IT department now regrets the acceptance of the 
"gift" because of the cost of going forward. MS wants to own the 
entire computing space. If you don't think that's the case you're 
delusional. If you think there's no truth to what Dan is saying, you 
haven't been paying attention to what's happened in this business 
during the last 20 years.

- web

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