If you hadn't thought about it yet, it may be time to plan for TechEd 2008 in Orlando. I believe that early registrations are open now. A big change for this year's event is the separation of developer content from IT-Pro focused content. These now occur back-to-back, instead of being mixed up in the same show. It'll give folks a chance to focus on the topics that are most relevant to their work. (Given my dual role as Open XML guy and IT Pro guy), I'll get to travel to both J. I'm involved with the track planning for Office and SharePoint, so as we make announcements on content and events at the show, I'll share some of those details leading up to the event.
For the IT Pro event, we (Office) will have a focus on deployment and migration issues. Because there are so many Office deployments underway, we can use an opportunity like TechEd to offer strategies, best practices, experts and other resources that are helpful in the roll-out process. We'll feature stuff like the Office Security Guide, Office Migration Planning Manager and a lot of other topics. Two pre-conference events that we're planning for TechEd IT Pro event should be pretty good for helping migrate to the 2007 products:
PRC19 2007 Microsoft Office System Upgrade: Real-World Learning from Microsoft IT
This seminar discusses how Microsoft's own IT department deploys and manages an upgrade of the Office system. Topics include migration from 2003 to 2007, update management, Groove deployment, SharePoint integration, and the deployment planning process. With tens of thousands of users, across multiple geographies and time zones, Microsoft manages one of the most complex IT environments in the enterprise. From this in-depth seminar, gain a better understanding of a complex "real-world" deployment of the 2007 Office system from your peers in Microsoft IT.
PRC20 SharePoint Upgrade: Hands-on Guidance, Best Practices, and Techniques
This day-long seminar covers important topics that are critical for the successful deployment and configuration of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. For customers who are upgrading from Windows SharePoint Services or SharePoint Portal Server 2003, this pre-conference offers deep-dive tutorials and labs to illustrate best practices and techniques to migrate your SharePoint environment as efficiently as possible.
We're seeing a lot of customers who are deep into their planning and upgrade cycles, so this should be well-timed for folks looking for the crystal ball to see how things are going to go. The main tracks at TechEd will have a ton of great deployment and migration content as well, but these will have a tight focus on actual results and should be time well spent for deployment folks.
I also came across a great post today with a contest for TechEd attendees. This game is a lot of fun!
I am full-up on geek points.
Every day I run across a great deal of useful data for Open XML, so I thought I'd share some of that:
David Overton recaps the KB articles that describe how to get Open XML documents indexed using various Microsoft server platforms:
Jasper Hedegaard Bojsen discusses (refutes) the idea that Open XML ISO ratification will harm interoperability:
The DAISY Consortium and Reed Shaffner discuss the current state of the DAISY Translator for Open XML
Oh? What is this? Jim King from Adobe Systems discusses the importance of preserving legacy content for the standardization process for PDF 1.7. (This sounds vaguely familiar, I think I may have heard the Open XML advocates say this on occasion J…). To quote Jim (with typos, sorry Jim):
"In fact, PDF has been a de facto standard based upon three things: the billions of existing files, the thousand of software offerings that create and process those files, and the Adobe PDF 1.7 Reference. And we decided that the order of preference to resolve any differences was in that order, files, software and then documentation. That is definitely not the standards approach where the document is supreme. So as we examined the Adobe PDF 1.7 Reference and turned it into the ISO 32000 draft we adopted what we called this "three legged stool" approach base upon prioritizing the three contributors to the existing standard. If we could capture the most correct interpretation in each area according to those criteria we could produce an ISO document that was (more) supreme and could be acceptable as the definitive word for what a PDF file contains. Of course, the Adode PDF 1.7 Reference proved to be fine for 99.9% of the definition."
I'm surprised that there aren't bloggers lining up all over the place to disagree with this approach, given its similarity to many discussions about Open XML. PDF 1.7, after all is a new spec for Acrobat 8, and was not used / did not exist in the world before 2007. And while PDF 1.7 is a likely a proper super-set of prior PDF versions, it is a brand new format offered for standardization (and ratified by ISO in about a year, through the fast-track process). We are in alignment with Jim on this one… we believe very strongly that preserving legacy content is critical in the document format standardization process.
Baker and McKenzie have published a new white paper discussing Open XML intellectual property issues:Brian Jones offered some new information about OASIS considering joining DIN to help on ODF and Open XML Interoperability:
Yes, Office 2007 is fully supported when used with Windows XP. This question is one I'd heard a few times in the past week; there is a lingering perception that Vista is required to use the 2007 versions of the products. Rest assured, this is not the case.
System requirements are posted here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA101668651033.aspx
Stephen McGibbon pointed me toward an interesting development for the IBM products announced at Lotusphere:
"But IBM will support Open XML, which is the current document format in Office 2007, in its Lotus collaboration and portal products. IBM already supports older versions of Office."
So claims an article posted today on News.com. We've seen a few attempts to "position" this support, where Rob Weir welcomes Open XML "to the exclusive company of "Every Document Format Known to Man" . I'm glad that you are so excited…" This illustrates an apparent contrast between what happens in reality vs. what happens in Rob Weir's blog post titled "The Piemen of Erie."
"That is the distortion you get if you look at a standards war through the narrow blinders of commercial interest. But if you look at the full market impact, the simple economics of it, it becomes a lot clearer. What brings greater efficiency, greater fidelity, greater innovation and lower costs? Having two incompatible document format standards? Or having a single harmonized document format standard? Fighting against economics is like fighting against gravity or the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. You are going to lose in the end. The piemen of Erie, and their modern counterparts, are on the wrong side of economics, and history,"
This seems strange coming from the guy who "designed and wrote" the product that supports "every document format known to man." I guess I'm still not sure how to interpret the difference between the action and the words. I guess IBM has signed up in the "fight against economics" too.
I'm willing to take a wager that the decision makers electing to provide Open XML support in their software really aren't trying to out-duel gravity, I'm going to hazard a guess that their support of Open XML is related to fulfilling a market need. Seems like a pretty rational approach to me.
If we direct our attention to the other stream of anti-Open XML rhetoric coming from the IBM guy (I'm not sure which one of these you'd refer to as the "Sidekick" here), a great example is this Bob Sutor entry from March of 2007:
"This is how I think it will play out: PDF will continue to see widespread use, ODF uptake will increase at the expense of the Microsoft binary formats, and OOXML will be odd man out."
Oops.
"For non-editable documents, use PDF. To use the modern XML format that is being adopted globally by individuals and organizations, use ODF. If you must use a Microsoft format, stick to the old binary formats so others can read them. I think OOXML is just too much trouble and I think the market will agree."
Whoopsie.
There is one statement in an earlier post (taken shamelessly out of context, I admit) with which I agree wholeheartedly. This is quite consistent with our position on document formats, and a primary motivation for our investments in ODF, UOF, PDF and other document format translation efforts.
"There have been many lessons learned in the last few months. Let's use that knowledge to improve how we make standards. Let's innovate. Let's write some great new code. Let's give our users a superb choice of applications that can all share the same information, no matter who writes the software."
We couldn't agree more, Bob. We've been investing in this idea, full steam ahead; we went "Beyond Office" a long, long time ago. For all the file-format related discussion, much of the interop-related discussion for Office has been bubbling quietly under the surface, but gaining very strong traction in real-world adoption. The Office Business Applications effort (blog is here) really underscores the effectiveness of the Office platform, and illustrates why the scope of interoperability in Office extends far beyond document formats.
It seems that, at least on this point, we are in agreement with IBM that the "market is choosing" what they really want: freedom and choice. It would also seem that IBM is running to the front of the parade on supporting multiple formats and providing choice within their products.
Indeed, IBM, "Stop Talking. Start Doing."
http://www.microsoft.com/MAP http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization
Microsoft has announced a Solution Accelerator for Virtualization in advance of the Windows Server 2008 launch. This solution accelerator includes material on Application Virtualization, which is relevant to the Office client products. This is an area of interest that has been increasing in our enterprise customer segment for a while. Virtualization is an important technology as we look toward improving application compatibility issues, deployment planning and other TCO-reduction activity for Office.
Microsoft Application Virtualization offers many benefits, but one which is a favorite of mine: I can use every version of Word on my desktop at the same time… (Several, but not all, are pictured).
This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek of course, I don't need clippy back, and I really don't write things in many versions of Word (having been the Word 2007 product manager, I am pretty satisfied with this version.. J). But if I had a plug-in that my business depended on, I could continue to use that version without stalling the upgrade for the remainder of the suite. Given the impossible number of add-ins and custom extensions we see, this is a great way to put those in a sandbox and keep progressing with the other productivity tools in the products.
Today is just one of those days where you see a lof of strangeness, I guess. Not trying to pick a fight here, but I can't help but point out the apparent contrast between this: http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1145
"That means that other products and software, in practice, will NOT be able to understand arbitrary Open XML that might be thrown at them. There is just too much. Therefore they will only create a bit that they need and send that off. Send it off to whom? The only software that might understand it, namely Microsoft Office.
So this is how I see this playing out: Open XML will be nearly fully read and written by Microsoft products, but only written in subset form by other software. This means that data in Open XML form will be largely sucked into the Microsoft ecosystem but very little will escape for full and practical use elsewhere."
And this: http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21288972, http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wpdoc/v6r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.wp.zos.doc/wpf/dcs_info.html
I guess we might not all be on the same page here. But it's good to see IBM leading the charge on Open XML adoption. This will be great for everyone. Interestingly enough, it appears that the document conversion services offer support for Open XML, but not ODF (but I could be wrong, I'm sure someone will straighten me out on that.)
(Updated: Rob Weir was kind enough to reply to a comment I made on his blog, and indicated that both formats (ODF and Open XML) are supported. Again, it seems we're aligned on views that multiple formats can co-exist in products with little difficulty.. http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wpdoc/v6r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.wp.zos.doc/wpf/dcs_view_html.html)
I was recently pointed to a presentation about Open XML that raised my curiosity. It found its way to me because it included my picture, but the content is what's on my mind. I take the Open XML discussion pretty seriously; I've had very interesting and stimulating discussions about Open XML with a lot of folks, but I've also seen a lot of the nonsense that makes the discussion cloudy and difficult (see below).
The slide references a comment I made in a ZDNet Australia interview in reference to advantages of XML-based document formats over binary formats for enabling better security. Specifically, having file formats represented in XML makes parsing simpler, because XML documents are expressed using a pre-defined (in this case public) schema. They can be easier to parse than binary formats, which can be opaque and obscure, even when you already have its documentation. Given a choice, I'm sure that 99/100 developers would prefer to work with an XML-based format over a binary format, if only for the sake of simplicity, and my comment here illustrates one of those reasons.
The deck goes onto state that Open XML allows "arbitrary binary blobs of data", citing this as a "security hole" (this isn't really anything new; this has been rehashed on several forums). I'll just take a guess and say the presenter probably missed a few important references about ODF (search for "Binary" in the text), or within the ODF spec itself… Section 9.3 of the ODF specification discusses how frames can contain "Objects represented either in the OpenDocument Format or in a Object Specific Binary Format." Section 9.3.5, describes the ability to add "plug-ins" to documents for "a media type that is not usually handled natively by office application software." Base64Binary is a core data type of ODF, as described in section 16.1.
Of course both Open XML and ODF allow the embedding of binary content. So I guess it's not clear to me why we're picking on the binary DevMode structure when (so-called "arbitrary") Binary data is supported in both formats (and probably every other authoring file format that is in widespread use today). If the implication is that ODF doesn't allow the inclusion of "arbitrary" binary information the implication is absurd and false. By this logic I'd guess it's worth a question to OASIS if we should expect binary data to be removed from a future version of the ODF spec? – I know the answer to that question; it's not even worth asking.
I haven't heard the deck presented, nor do I plan to tear the rest of it down (might be fun for a rainy day), but it looks to me like whoever created this slide deck is attempting to criticize a fundamental purpose of XML. Or maybe this is a criticism of the entire list of XML-based format specifications. Nothing about this criticism is specific to Open XML… it is an indictment of XML and document formats.
It seems odd to pick a fight with yourself (… very Fight Club-ish… "I am Jack's Self-deprecating Argument"…);
The discussion about parsing XML formats vs. binary formats is equally applicable to Open XML, ODF, UOF, CDF, or (pick your XML-based format of the day). These slides contribute nothing to the XML formats discussion other than confusion. Part of the reason that the XML Formats debate exists is because (I think) we at least agree that XML offers us better opportunities for document format management than a binary format would… but according to the their point of view, I seem to be mistaken on that point. I must also be seeing things, because when I read the ODF spec, I see a lot of "arbitrary" binary data types in there too… obviously I've missed something.
Silly me J.
Some things are just good no matter how you look at them. Managing macro-size products can be strange sometimes, because you lose perspective on individuals. Product managers spend a lot of time (at least the good ones do) trying to connect with people to get a tactile "feel" for what their product does, how it is used, and so on. But every once in a while, you get involved with something that you just feel good about from the very first moment.
For me, the Open XML to DAISY Translator is one of those projects.
I'm not sure I've been as proud to be involved in anything in my software career as I am this project. I was only involved in the early planning stages of the thing; Reed Shaffner has been taking point on this for us, working with the DAISY consortium and Sonata on the project. But I am just thrilled to see this project progressing. Open XML and DAISY have permanently raised my awareness and interest level in software for Accessibility. I've now joined the large group of folks at our company who are passionate about the topic. I can only hope to have more chances in the future to do good things in this area.
Online Videos by Veoh.com
Yesterday at our press event, I was with Reed and DAISY Consortium Secretary General George Kerscher, where they were discussing the DAISY project. I wanted to point back to this video of the coverage to share it. It is wonderful to see. The full article is here: http://blogs.inquirer.net/techaddicts/2008/01/17/ivdo-daisy-makes-reading-documents-easier-for-the-blind/
Brian is in a unique position of being a TC-45 member and Microsoft employee, and his post really illustrates how much work has to go into the Ecma efforts around ISO standardization. I've been in the trenches with Brian on file formats for quite a while now; I've seen how hard the work is. I am always happy to applaud my fellow Buckeye fans, especially when they work so hard to carry the ball forward on Open XML and interoperability.
If you didn't see Brian's post, it's worth a read before you proceed here. In essence, it says that Microsoft will adjust the existing binary format program so that the documentation will be available directly from the Web, and offered under the Open Specification Promise. It goes on to say that Microsoft has committed to sponsoring a binary to Open XML conversion tool as an Open Source project. These developments are a response to national body comments on Open XML in the ISO/IEC standardization process.
It's important to recognize that binary format documents are important digital assets. This conversion project is important because it effectively makes the conversion of documents in binary formats to Open XML even simpler by providing a reference implementation that can be reused. It also provides more options for people to transition from binary to Open XML formats, with or without Office.
In addition, the OSS project will make it even easier for an array of products that currently support the binaries to transition to a more developer-friendly XML format. If you believe the OSS model, you'll agree that offering the source code for converting binary documents to open xml documents will hopefully stimulate a community of software products that will perform this valuable service. I think of the scores of content management software providers who implement the current binary formats, who are faced with a question of what to do about file formats… happy about Open XML because they get an easier file format to develop, questioning what the best way is to go about beginning a transition. Having a reference implementation will provide an easier starting place in the transition process.
Adobe, Sun and IBM already have received our binary file format specifications for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Each of these companies currently ship products which support .DOC, .XLS, or .PPT. (For example, Adobe Acrobat includes a "Save as .DOC" feature, StarOffice, Notes, and other applications support the existing binaries). The OSS project should provide them with an additional mechanism to understand how to convert binary to Open XML (and subsequently translate between XML formats if they choose), but also handle the binary formats in other applications. Many, many other companies have also licensed the formats.
In the end, these announcements are really a "rising tide" for everyone interested in file formats. It benefits our partners, standards participants, competitors, and hopefully answers a lot of national body comments as well.
I don't have the type of job where I distill global economic indicators into sound bites and loose predictions, but I do spend cycles trying to understand what people are going to be thinking about in the future. For any software product manager, keeping an eye on ".next" is as important as any other part of the job. It's especially tricky when you work on a product where decisions that involve "1% of our users" affect somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000,000 people.
Much of what any product manager does (I've held the role at 3 companies) is answering an impossibly random variety questions & challenges. I've compared it before to a 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year pop quiz where any topic is fair game. We get asked by many people about many things… what should this cost?, how should it be licensed?, why does my <widget> work this way?, where can I find a partner for <solution>?, when will my bug be fixed?, what features do we need in the next version?, what should we call this feature?, can we have a case study? What does your product adoption look like? Which industry events should we attend? ... topics emerge, simmer on the surface for a while, and then subside, it can be very trick to keep this many balls in the air at one time.
Much like the weather, good product management requires a lot of good forecasting. Successfully anticipating the questions makes life a lot easier, given the variety & depth of what we cover on a daily basis. But it is also the opportunity we have to do a bit of agenda-setting; where we can accept the feedback from the community at large, and take action to help shape how our product is behaving in the world. Good forecasting and successful reflection of market requirements is at the very heart of innovation and technology leadership; it is the scrum of technological advancement.
2006 was about preparing for the launch of Office 2007. Last year (and for the foreseeable future), Open XML was a big topic; we knew going in that a file format change in Office was going to be a big deal. Compatibility, standardization, adoption, accessibility are among the many dimensions of the problem that require active management. Security was a bet we made in 2007 also, and our investment there resulted in the Office Security Guide. Groove and InfoPath continue to be important investment areas, as these products become a more prominent solution for front-ending line of business applications.
Emerging interest areas from our customers for 2008 include application virtualization, (even more) accessibility, migration to VBA.NET and the .NET framework for Office solutions, (even more) security, and of course Open XML. There are countless other topics to consider, but these are among the important ones.
Application Virtualization has heated up considerably in the last 9 months. The emergence of SoftGrid and Vista Desktop Optimization is driving strong interest in using application virtualization technology to solve for application compatibility issues, allowing the use of multiple Office versions on a single desktop, and even for simplifying the deployment, patching and management processes. We're seeing how virtualizing Office with SoftGrid is delivering on its potential of a lower TCO. For us, 2008 is about helping people understand, when, why and how to consider using SoftGrid and Office in combination to simplify an IT environment. It's a great opportunity for us to provide some bottom-line benefit.
Accessibility continues to be a critical topic for Office. There was a big push in the political arena last year to confuse the role of a document format with the role of an application in enabling assistive technology, but hopefully this will subside in 2008. Every discussion I had about document format accessibility last year successfully concluded by reasoning that the functionality of the consuming applications matters much, much more than the format itself. Nonetheless, we will deliver the DAISY Translator for Open XML in 2008, and the Open XML Ballot Resolution Meeting will include several important spec changes that incorporate greater accessibility support. Our product-related investments for accessibility will look toward future Office releases, engagement with our assistive technology partners, and a bunch of other stuff. Reed Shaffner on my team will be gearing up a blog in 2008 to share progress (I'll link to him once he gets underway.)
Visual Studio 2008 is an important advancement for getting control of the code written behind custom Office solutions. We're seeing many of the macro developers of the past mature into .NET and managed code solutions, so Visual Studio and VSTO will help these folks migrate into a more secure and stable environment. They're also gearing up on blog activity. For us (like so many other things J) we'll spend a lot of time helping to explain when, why and how customers will use VSTO as a solution for migrating Macros into a more robust environment.
For Open XML, the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva is just around the corner. This means that national bodies voting on Open XML will have an opportunity to review the proposed changes to the 3,500 national body comments. The result of this period of the voting is a much improved specification; everything from the clarity and organization of the standard down to the notation syntax for form field has been updated. We're hopeful that this will address the comments raised by national bodies sufficiently to obtain ISO approval.
InfoPath and Groove are achieving critical mass. Both are central to Office Business Applications, and based on the deployments we're seeing in the wild today, we're feeling pretty good about progress on both products. As we invest more in helping our customers achieve line of business interoperability with the Office client applications, our progress here will only strengthen. This is a real bright spot for Office, and will have a lot of focus in 2008 as well.
Needless to say 2008 will be a huge year for me and my team as well as the folks we're partnered with inside and outside the company.
We're excited, refreshed and geared up for the new year.