Team ODF made a big play today, with Big Blue carrying the ball deep back into Microsoft territory.
Team ODF returned to the offense today, as IBM’s Bob Sutor announced early this morning in India that IBM would support ODF early next year. As The New Delhi Economic Times, reported:
NEW DELHIL: Global IT company IBM will start supporting ‘open standards’ in India from early next year, by when the company would launch the new version of its Workplace Managed Client supporting Open Document Format (ODF).
“The next version to be launched in early 2006 will support the newly-ratified ODF providing flexibility of sharing information regardless of any software platform you are using,” IBM Vice President of Standards and Open Source Bob Sutor told reporters here on Monday. Martin LaMonica had gotten the story earlier, and reported on late Sunday at ZDNet, IBM was following a different approach then simply bringing out another office suite:
Rather than create an analog to Microsoft Office, IBM is offering editors for creating documents, spreadsheets or presentations within a Web browser. Documents are delivered via a Web portal and stored in shared directories. Access control and document management tools allow people to share and edit documents with others….
Arthur Fontaine, the marketing manager for Workplace Managed Client, believes IBM’s support for industry standards and the server-centric design of Workplace will appeal to customers in developing countries, particularly governments.
“The governments of India, China and other emerging markets are very interested in this,” Fontaine said. “They don’t have the legacy of having everything saved in Microsoft Office to transition from…This is an opportunity to start out right.”
The news seems to be resonating in India. The article continues as follows:
A representative for India’s National Informatics Center (NIC) said in a statement that the country is pursuing a technology policy of “open standards and open source.”
“The NIC has received a mandate from the Central Department of Information Technology to work in the areas of standards to facilitate implementation of the National e-Governance Program in the country,” said M. Moni, deputy director general of India’s NIC. “The choice, flexibility and reliability inherent in open standards like ODF are critical in our efforts to drive the eGovernance momentum in the country.”
But the real government fun was to come a few hours later (less than an hour ago, as I write this), when Michael D. Rhodin, General Manager of Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software for IBM — and resident in Massachusetts — emailed and faxed a letter to Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, announcing in great detail how the new technology had been developed in…(wait for it)…Massachusetts. Here are a few excerpts (the complete letter appears at the end of this entry):
I’d like to share some information on an exciting new IBM product that was built in Massachusetts but is expected to have implications on both a national and international level.
Today, IBM extended its support for open standards by announcing a new software product designed to fully support the OASIS OpenDocument Format for Office Applications (ODF). Designed at IBM’s development lab in Westford, Massachusetts, the IBM Workplace Managed Client will help protect an organization’s investment in corporate data by promoting consistency, reliability and open accessibility of its documents.
As you know, Massachusetts is recognized across the globe as an incubator for software development. As the result of acquiring several Massachusetts-based companies, including Rational Software, Lotus Development Corp. and Ascential Software, we now have over 4,000 IBMers based in the Commonwealth. Our employees are spread across IBM offices in Cambridge, Waltham, Lexington, Westborough and Westford, where I have led the development of IBM’s collaboration software product line for the last two years.
Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn, you may recall, was the first State CIO to adopt ODF. As I’ve pointed out before, his action provided a shining example of Massachusetts innovation in action, at a time when the Commonwealth is shedding rather than adding jobs to its software industry. But what happened? He was undermined in the legislature, and even his speaking at IT conventions, which again showcased Massachusetts innovation, became the subject of an investigation – not for taking payments, but for failing to get verbal authorizations converted into the required forms. He has also been accused (inaccurately) of being a partisan for open source, as compared to a partisan for sound, cost-effective IT management.
Rhodin lays it on the line in this letter, supporting Quinn by showing that open standards and open source can save significant money — something Quinn was questioned closely on during the earlier hearing:
As you heard previously, open standards help ensure flexibility and efficiency for business and governments around the world. To bring this discussion to life, allow me to direct your attention to an analysis done in France following the implementation of open source products at the French tax agency (Direction Générale des Impôts). As a result of running software based on open standards, the agency is now saving around �20m per year — a considerable portion of the agency’s �200m yearly IT budget.
But Rhodin’s real message is to subtly point out that Romney – who is believed to be positioning himself for a presidential bid – has the choice of either latching on to ODF as a success story, or continue to backpedal as fast as he can away from a genuine Massachusetts success story:
The new Workplace Managed Client is one example of how IBM is driving economic development in the Commonwealth. Leveraging the business ecosystem, creating collaborative environments and maintaining focus on the end user are what enable growth. The underlying framework of these activities is open standards. I’d like to echo IBM’s previous public statement that commends the administration for the continuing and exhaustive open process that has been employed in evaluating the best technology solutions for the citizens of the Commonwealth.
In short, Rhodin says (as did Bob Sutor in a letter last week) don’t abandon that “exhaustive process” with an expedient pre-adoption of a competing format that is not yet, and possibly may never, achieve the status of a standard.
All in all, a very satisfying day for Team ODF. IBM’s move has flash, it has style — and it has a point. Big Blue’s actions today should be sufficient to move the ball back across the center field line, recovering much or all of the ground lost to Microsoft’s Ecma announcements just before Thanksgiving.
The game is far from over, but today, Team ODF evened up the score.
* * * * * * * * *
TEXT OF IBM LETTER TO GOVERNOR MITT ROMNEY
The Honorable Mitt Romney
Governor, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
State House, Room 360
Boston MA, 02133
Dear Governor Romney:
I’d like to share some information on an exciting new IBM product that was built in Massachusetts but is expected to have implications on both a national and international level.
Today, IBM extended its support for open standards by announcing a new software product designed to fully support the OASIS OpenDocument Format for Office Applications (ODF). Designed at IBM’s development lab in Westford, Massachusetts, the IBM Workplace Managed Client will help protect an organization’s investment in corporate data by promoting consistency, reliability and open accessibility of its documents.
As you know, Massachusetts is recognized across the globe as an incubator for software development. As the result of acquiring several Massachusetts-based companies, including Rational Software, Lotus Development Corp. and Ascential Software, we now have over 4,000 IBMers based in the Commonwealth. Our employees are spread across IBM offices in Cambridge, Waltham, Lexington, Westborough and Westford, where I have led the development of IBM’s collaboration software product line for the last two years.
What you may not know is that software is a major growth engine for IBM, and solutions being developed at these IBM locations are being built on open standards because our customers are demanding choice and control over their information technology.
As you heard previously, open standards help ensure flexibility and efficiency for business and governments around the world. To bring this discussion to life, allow me to direct your attention to an analysis done in France following the implementation of open source products at the French tax agency (Direction Générale des Impôts). As a result of running software based on open standards, the agency is now saving around �20m per year — a considerable portion of the agency’s �200m yearly IT budget.
The new Workplace Managed Client is one example of how IBM is driving economic development in the Commonwealth. Leveraging the business ecosystem, creating collaborative environments and maintaining focus on the end user are what enable growth. The underlying framework of these activities is open standards. I’d like to echo IBM’s previous public statement that commends the administration for the continuing and exhaustive open process that has been employed in evaluating the best technology solutions for the citizens of the Commonwealth.
I hope you share our enthusiasm for this announcement and what it means for the future of companies, organizations and citizens across the state and across the world.
Sincerely,
Michael D. Rhodin
General Manager
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM
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