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Microsoft Government News

UK Agency Files OOXML Complaint, EU Demurs 132

Posted by kdawson from the we-know-we-know-already dept.
Christopher Blanc writes to let us know that although BECTA, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, has filed a complaint with EU regulators about Microsoft's business practices, the European Commission won't be doing anything particular about it. BECTA claimed that the OOXML format discourages competition. BECTA lodged a similar complaint with the UK Office of Fair Trading last October. A Commission press officer said, "We are already looking into the issues raised in that complaint already and we are not treating it as a formal complaint to us."
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UK Agency Files OOXML Complaint, EU Demurs More

UK Agency Files OOXML Complaint, EU Demurs

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  • Pay off. (Score:3, Funny)

    by sigterm9 ( 1192467 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @06:28PM (#23396894)
    Wonder what its going to take in order to make it a "formal" complaint. Maybe attach a tazer to that complaint to get some attention from someone there. Or the Microsoft way, just pay the person to make it formal right?

    • Yes, Prime Minister (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @08:20PM (#23397856) Homepage Journal
      Two memorable quotes that seem highly relevent to this discussion from a series that satirises politics so well that it is now part of the training program for British civil servants.

      "Britain should always be on the side of law and justice, so long as we don't allow it to affect our foreign policy."

      "It is well known that in the Foreign Office an order from the Prime Minister becomes a request from the Foreign Secretary, then a recommendation from the Minister of State, finally just a suggestion from the Ambassador. If it ever gets that far."

      (Read the first as an EU guide to business policy, and the second as to why a demand from a British agency can never be a formal request.)

      • "A hole was discovered today on the M1. Police are looking into it."

        Whaddya mean offtopic?!

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by MadMidnightBomber ( 894759 )
        A tourist is wandering down Whitehall and seems to be looking for something. He asks a policeman, "Excuse me, which side is the Foreign Office on?"

        The policeman looks confused. "Er, ours I think."

    • Re:Pay off. (Score:5, Informative)

      by flnca ( 1022891 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @08:27PM (#23397888) Journal
      Just read the last sentence of the article:

      "We are already looking into the issues raised in that complaint already..."
      Microsoft is currently facing another EUR 899 million fine for not following EU antitrust regulations ( BBC article [bbc.co.uk] ). Recently, I read an article that mentioned explicitly that OOXML is already being investigated as yet another cause of concern. They're looking into it!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by flnca ( 1022891 )
        BTW, have a look at this publication [europa.eu] of the European Court. It is the ruling of September 17, 2007 in the antitrust case.

      • Re:Pay off. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by exley ( 221867 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @09:52PM (#23398384) Homepage
        You hit the nail right on the head. To me this article is pure flamebait. This is already being investigated, it was mentioned right in the summary, and the article was even said as being "from the we-know-we-know-already dept." for fuck's sake! All that is filtered out by Slashdot groupthink, though, so that we can launch into the latest edition of the Two Minutes Hate.

        I've started tagging most MS articles with "twominuteshate" because most of them are just like this one -- they add nothing new to the discussion and are just an excuse for people to get off on an anti-MS rant. Who the hell is running this site, twitter?

        Look, I'm no MS apologist but Slashdot has become like the boy who cried wolf -- even when a valid point is raised (instead of just being a flamebait article), I just can't get enthused because I'm tired of the nonsense.
        • because microsoft (et al.) will not die simply because we flame them, they'll die for various reasons (in this case because OSS is going to whip microsoft's @$$)
          • I just have to say that I've used OOo and Office 2007. I challenge you to make a good looking diagram in OOo. I can make better looking diagrams in Office 95 or even Paint.

            I don't get what all the fuss is about. The stated goal of OOXML is to make an XML based file format compatible with all the proprietary binary bits of Office. Why on earth would anyone outside of Microsoft need to implement the whole thing? Microsoft Office is huge and everywhere. So there are some bits in there that aren't fully documen

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by CmdrGravy ( 645153 )

              The stated goal of OOXML is to make an XML based file format compatible with all the proprietary binary bits of Office

              And that's fine but why would you then want to also claim it should be an international standard ? This is where the disagreement arises because why should anyone else in the world be concerned about solutions to problems which only arise in one outdated set of Office Suites, what benefit does this bring to the international community ? I would say none at all and such things have no place i

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by tsm_sf ( 545316 )
          Actually /. started off anti-MS because we used to be a collection of IT-type people who actually had to work with their products and deal with their employees. MS has improved a bit over the years but is now, in the minds of a lot of people, simply a known bad actor.

          Basically, what you call "two minutes hate" is just recollection. I'm not sure why so many fans of the company cannot see that a lot of us are simply "once burned, twice shy".
          • Microsoft is the new IBM. It took IBM forever to get rid of the "evil empire" image and some still consider it to apply.
            • So, you honestly think that Microsoft will someday turn into something like the present-day IBM? And who do you think will follow them as the new 'Evil Empire'?
              • Not entirely unlikely. What we are seeing today might ery well be the first signs of Microsoft collapsing under their own weight. When that happens they will have to change the way they do business or perish. Microsoft is too big to just disappear, so I think they will shed some of their side businesses and find some niche to fill.

                As to who will succeed them as the Evil Empire... Google is a possibility. They don't have to, but it's not unthinkable. And they are the next big superstar in IT.

        • Re:Pay off. (Score:4, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 14, 2008 @05:24AM (#23400388)
          Actually, the article is FUD. Becta never asked that it's complaint be
          treated as a new complaint. It asked that it be added to the already
          existing complaint regarding OOXML. It has been.

          Here is what Becta said in its statement announcing it had sent its
          complaint already filed with the UK antitrust regulator to the EU
          Commission:

          "Following discussions with the OFT, Becta has now referred its interoperability complaint and related evidence to the European Commission in support of the Commission's wider investigation."

          Someone decided to write an article as if Becta had been denied its
          complaint as being redundant. That isn't accurate. It was added to
          the other complaint about OOXML, which is *exactly what Becta asked for*.
          Somehow it gets turned around and described as some kind of Microsoft
          victory.

          Disgusted you say? Ditto.

  • Trasform teaching? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gat0r30y ( 957941 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @06:34PM (#23396950) Homepage Journal

    Microsoft insisted that it is "deeply committed" to education and interoperability. More schools are upgrading to Windows Vista and Office 2007 as they recognize the benefit of "embracing technology to transform teaching and learning,"
    I'm not sure I want teaching to get transformed like this. It doesn't sound pleasant.

    • Re:Trasform teaching? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cp.tar ( 871488 ) <cp.tar.bz2@gmail.com> on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @07:06PM (#23397298) Journal

      Microsoft insisted that it is "deeply committed" to education and interoperability. More schools are upgrading to Windows Vista and Office 2007 as they recognize the benefit of "embracing technology to transform teaching and learning,"
      I'm not sure I want teaching to get transformed like this. It doesn't sound pleasant.

      Even worse, it doesn't sound useful.
      To anyone but Microsoft, that is.

      There is nothing in either Vista od Office 2007 that I am aware of that can "transform teaching and learning" in any significant way. Not for the better, in any case.
      For one, I really don't see what makes Office 2007 better than any other office suite; it's not that high-school kids need all the functions provided in it.

      I strongly object to schools becoming training grounds where certain software packages will be taught. Schools should be about teaching basic concepts, not specific programs.
      (I wouldn't be ranting that much if Office 2007 didn't break compatibility both in file format and UI.)

      Computers can be used in class. In certain cases, they may even be extremely useful.
      There is much more to it, however, than Vista and Office.

      • Re:Trasform teaching? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @07:41PM (#23397600)
        There is much more to it, however, than Vista and Office.

        Indeed, it would be best if every assignment required them to shift down to the next PC in a heterogeneous lab... a mix of Vista, 2k, XP, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and OSX units, with a mix of MS Office XP, 2007, Mac Edition, OpenOffice 2, iWork...

        Teach kids to learn what a spreadsheet, presentation, document is, and what can be done with them, and they'll figure out how to make it do what they need on each platform.

        But such a perfect world would be too much to ask... and not nearly as efficient as 200 stations that all boot from a single disk image on a server... whatever the platform is chosen. I'd prefer it not be windows though... I know my kids will get plenty of exposure to that one regardless. So a bias to a minority platform makes sense in a teaching environment.

        • Here I was thinking that a spreadsheet was just a tool for redundant and boring business accounting and that kids should be taught something more fundamental like ... math.

          Either way you look at it, a free spreadsheet will teach the same lesson as the non free one, so the schools might as well save their money and teach kids the benefits of free software. When you know how to use one sheet, you know them all so there's no case for a school to waste money on Office. Businesses should learn this lesson too

          • The GP post was much more insightful than yours. All you're advocating there is a shift from teaching kids to rely on Office to understand how to do a task to teaching kids to rely on OpenOffice to do a task. There's no benefit to that, while teaching the ways to achieve it in multiple systems could well teach the underlying principles.

            Then again, it's one step closer to making Microsoft products illegal, and that's your ultimate goal isn't it?

    • Re:Trasform teaching? (Score:5, Funny)

      by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @07:25PM (#23397492)

      I'm not sure I want teaching to get transformed like this. It doesn't sound pleasant.

      Actually, it's a time-honoured approach to teaching. In ancient Greece it was widespread for teachers to bugger their young students.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'm not sure I want teaching to get transformed like this. It doesn't sound pleasant.

      Time to change Bill Gates' icon from Borg to Decepticon.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Repton ( 60818 )

      [student raises his hand] "Miss! I'm requesting permission to go to the toilet. Cancel or allow?"

      [teacher sighs] "Allow ... but be quick!"

  • BECTA (Score:5, Informative)

    by Xest ( 935314 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @06:43PM (#23397064)
    For those that don't know Becta is a UK organisation that acts to advice the nations schools on their IT strategies.

    It doesn't have any formal powers from what I understand in forcing schools to or not to use certain technologies however it does produce a list of Becta authorised providers which some schools will choose only to work with.

    That said it has a lot of power in the UK educational arena and has always been quite pro-open source on many occasions, it's still recommending against Office 2007 in schools and as such has been quite successful in warding many schools off switching to Office 2007.

    It's not the most powerful organisation there is and it doesn't really have any power over standards, but it's very influental in UK education and if Microsoft pisses them off enough I could very well imagine them making an ever stronger drive towards open source to the point they will likely put together resources that make it easy for schools to make the switch.

    Some areas of local goverment, schools and in some cases, university policy is largely based around what Becta recommends in the UK.

    • BECTA may not have any formal power but they are an authority. They are independent and know what they are talking about. It's not about Microsoft pissing them off, it's about Microsoft offering a bad deal.

      There is near unanimity in the technical world that OOXML is not a worthwhile or well written standard. It is not complete or consistent. There is not even a working reference and it is also patent encumbered. That it passed is a textbook example of how position and power can be abused. The ISO is ta

  • Note the wording (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ymenager ( 171142 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @07:26PM (#23397494)
    Note that the EC commission said: "We are already looking into the issues raised in that complaint"

    Reading between the lines, and doing some extrapolation based on previous event, I am guessing that what is going in the their minds is something like that:

    "Microsoft think they are above our laws and disrespect our authority by ignoring our rulings. That complaint is redundant because we are already investigating the OOXML mess, since it's going to be great ammunition when we need to bash them on the head AGAIN for continuing to break the rules"

    • Re:Note the wording (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ianare ( 1132971 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @09:07PM (#23398124)
      Exactly. The commission is already on it, so they modded BECTA's complaint -1 redundant. I think that they may call on BECTA when this goes to court, as I'm certain it will.

      Also, BECTA's timing on this is impeccable!

      BECTA's complaint arrived at the offices of the Commission's competition department just after Microsoft decided to appeal against the 899 million euro (US$1.3 billion) fine it received earlier this year for failing to honor the Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling against it.

  • Better school funding (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bullfish ( 858648 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @10:17PM (#23398520)
    would probably allow for more choice in platform. Since the 80's, both MS and Apple have donated and plowed money and software into schools. Both are proprietary and that's why they did it. To create future market. MS had deeper pockets and over time outspent Apple. That was the 80's. By the 90's, business by then was solidly MS DOS/early Windows and had a flock of people entering the workforce who were MS familiar. This is continuing today. Schools have come to depend on donations of software and computers and if MS wants to pony up vista machines with OOXML Office 2007 packages, they'll take it.

    I can't fault a school for taking such a deal (provided they are true donations). MS is just taking advantage of the fact that schools in a lot of jurisdictions are underfunded. For that to change, the electorate has to kick up a stink. In the meantime, if I'm running a school and need money for a new boiler etc, and MS gives me free software and computers, I'm taking it. That's an expense I don't have to worry about. At least the developing world got OLPCs.

    • I'm not in the UK, but some of the other posters are... would you use someRandomFreewareWebBrowser (other than MSIE) that the school board hates and told you not to use (not like they're going to be doing audits or anything...) ? It is free, after all...

    • Just a note, the apple II was as open as could possibly be, but not free of course, as the software in rom that ran it was not able to be copied freely etc.

      But the documentation on it was excellent, the manual even included schematics on how it was built. only with the macintosh and later were things restricted and closed.

      One of the many reasons I'm still trying to find an apple II, the monitor program built into it is a prime example of a good way to get people to learn simple assembly programming.

  • OOXML is bad and here's why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mlwmohawk ( 801821 ) on Tuesday May 13, 2008 @10:37PM (#23398632)
    I hear a lot of people defending OOXML or oblivious as to why it is really a problem. Let me spell it in no uncertain terms.

    Microsoft has illegally used its monopoly position to eliminate competition. This is a fact as found in a court of law.

    One of the methods of illegally maintaining their monopoly has been the upgrade treadmill. With regards to MS Office document formats, it works like this: version 'N' of the office software can not read documents created by version 'O.' This forces users of version 'N' to upgrade to version 'O.' -- Profit for Microsoft.

    3rd party ISVs are in a similar situation, once they finally figure out how to support the document version in version 'N,' they have to continue development to support vesion 'O.'

    This means that 3rd party ISVs and users have a continuing problem maintaining their environment and interoperability without risking incompatibility or continually expending capital.

    "Standards" are generally used to stop this exploitation and create a more level marketplace allowing innovation above the standardized foundation, eliminating the constant capital expenditure of keeping up.

    The OOXML is a sham. It is nothing more than a continuation of Microsoft's monopoly defacto bullshit standard. OOXML is nothing more than a way to game the system and do nothing more than they already do. Upon release of a new MS office version, they submit their changes to ISO, and move on from there.

    It gives users and ISVs no relief. It creates no usable standard. It does nothing to level the market place. It does nothing to help the consumer. It does nothing to help the industry.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by tokul ( 682258 )

      This forces users of version 'N' to upgrade to version 'O.' -- Profit for Microsoft.
      And Microsoft does not sell Office upgrades. Try upgrading, if your SA is expired or you have outdated OEM version. "Upgrade" costs same amount of money as full retail version.

  • the European Commission won't be doing anything particular about it... A Commission press officer said, "We are already looking into the issues raised in that complaint already and we are not treating it as a formal complaint to us."

    Remember, these are the same guys [videolan.org] who tried to push through software patents in violation of EU law. The European Commission is distinct from the European Parliament. The commission is not particularly democratic, or apparently even particularly law abiding judging from the software patent affair. It should come as no surprise that the Commission would wish to look the other way in the OOXML affair.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by lordholm ( 649770 )
      Well, with democratic, if you mean not directly elected, then you are right.

      The commission is appointed my the state governments of the EU and scrutinised by the European parliament (and since the last time it is clear that they can kick out single members that they don't like).

      Now, compare this with how the state cabinets are elected in a parliamentarian system (as is the case in all of EU), the parliament is elected and they appoint a government. The exact contents of this government is typically arrange
  • So MS bought a compatibility ruling to allow its 8000 page specification to become a "standard". With very suspicious actions on the part of Norway, Denmark and Germany...

    So all MS has to do in the future is to make MS Office just slightly incompatible with the specification so that Open Office and others can't always correctly read MS documents and voila, the incompatibility remains. We are just where we were before with proprietary formats. MS will insist they are compatible and the it's the others wh

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by flnca ( 1022891 )
      It's because Microsoft has always been unable to provide upwards compatible specifications. Let's look at the Microsoft-related standards that have been issued by the ECMA (European Computer Manufacturer's Association) [ecma-international.org], they're all free downloads:

      OOXML [ecma-international.org], 1st ed., Dec. 2006
      CLI [ecma-international.org], 4th ed., Jun. 2006; see also TR/84 [ecma-international.org], TR/89 [ecma-international.org]
      Managed C++ [ecma-international.org], 1st ed., Dec. 2005
      C# [ecma-international.org], 4th ed., Jun. 2006
      Windows API [ecma-international.org], Dec. 1995 (Windows 3.1 API)

      Let's note that in those areas, in which Microsoft wished for stronger support by the indus
      • Thanks for the references. I did notice, for example, that the Windows API reference is for 3.1.

        I don't trust MS to make a full attempt to be compatible. It is in their interest to maintain incompatibility between Office and competitors. Every manager will make a decision based on being compatible with what Office produces. And it doesn't matter whose fault it is, if it isn't compatible, managers will err on the side of caution and go with the MS product.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by flnca ( 1022891 )
          If Microsoft was serious about standards, they would base Windows on a UN*X kernel (like the BSDs or Linux perhaps), which would save them a lot of money (just like it did for Apple), and concentrate on an open-source effort to make the .NET platform and framework open-source and merge with the Mono project. Then, the .NET platform and libraries should be standardized. After that, Microsoft should port whatever necessary to the OpenOffice platform and make it open-source. This would save Microsoft a lot of
  • Hasn't anyone noticed that the article is only there to carry the payload in the largest paragraph?

    Microsoft insisted that it is "deeply committed" to education ...

    The rest is utterly redundant and sugar for us flies.

    Bad free publicity is free publicity.

    Clean the windshield.

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