03.17.08
IDC Analyst Attacks ODF and Praises OOXML Ahead of Crucial Vote (Corrected)
[See corrections in the comments. Dennis Byron no longer works at IDC.]
The general rule still stands: those who shill for OOXML are in Microsoft's pocket
A weeks ago I briefly mentioned Dennis Byron's accusations against me, as well as his new pro-OOXML and anti-ODF obsession. Having realised that something might be amiss, I came to realise that he now blogs about this topic almost exclusively. More importantly, it turns out that he works for IDC, which pretty much explains it all (I did not know this before). IDC is working closely with Microsoft and, if I recall correctly, also has investments from that direction (perhaps it was Bill Gates who invests). IDC was also paid by Microsoft to conduct at least one ’study’ on this subject — a study which, needless to say, favours OOXML (Microsoft paid the bill and instructed).
So, consider this a warning. Dennis Byron is IDC. Don’t forget what IDC is to Microsoft [1, 2]. █
Victor Soliz said,
March 17, 2008 at 8:32 am
I feel a little better now, I was scared when I read his non-sense blogs, now this explains everything. Just another paid blogger.
Dennis Byron said,
March 17, 2008 at 9:14 am
To whom it may concern:
1 . I do not work for IDC
I did work for the Datapro division of McGraw Hill and IDC from 1991-2005. When I worked for IDC I did more work for Red Hat, IBM, Oracle and other proponents of ODF than I ever did for Microsoft, probably at a 10:1 ratio. (Not that it matters, but the author of this post seems to have some obsession with IDC.)
2. I prepare a full-length magazine article a week and five blog posts a week and have done so every week for two years. In that period I have commented on ODF about five times.
(I wouldn’t put too much faith in his or her ability to get facts straight before writing a blog post.)
3. My major research is primarily aimed at investors. A key issue for investors is the concerted effort by Sun, Red Hat and others to lock SAP, Microsoft and others out of certain government markets through legislation, government regulation and so-called “international standards” bodies. A good example of that this month is the day by day drip-drip-drip PR effort by Sun, Red Hat, Google, IBM and others to derail ISO approval of OOXML because a vote is in progress. When I have mentioned ODF or OOXML in the last few weeks, it is an example of how these useless standards efforts lessen shareholder value.
(If the writer of this blog had actually read my blog posts, he or she would realize that my major criticism in this matter is against Microsoft. He or she would also see that I am against all so-called “international standards.”)
4. I have never seen this web site before this morning (3/17/2008) and I do not know the author of this blog. Therefore I have never accused him or her of anything.
– Dennis Byron
Roy Schestowitz said,
March 17, 2008 at 9:56 am
I apologise for thinking you are still at IDC, which indeed I have absolutely no respect for. IDC sells numbers. It doesn’t aspire to actually do proper research but mainly to just please its customers (wealthy companies in search of manufactured PR).
This relates to a previous rebuttal to your post. Standards have nothing to do with shareholders. Not everything in life is judged by the dollar and without standards you would not have the Internet, your blog, or even a manageable way to handle bad light bulbs Standards are the glue for everything in our lives..
You sent me a couple of E-mails in the past. I’m sure you know me.
SubSonica said,
March 17, 2008 at 10:03 am
Dear Dennis: “concerted effort by Sun, Red Hat and others to lock SAP, Microsoft and others out of certain government markets through legislation, government regulation and so-called “international standards” bodies”
On the contrary, it is Microsof the one who is making concerted efforts (worldwide, throught their partners and proxies) to keep their lock-in on governements who are trying to open competition through open standards. That’s why Microsoft had to push its own standard in order to avoid ODF levelling the playing fieldand opening the competition in Office Productivity suites. By the way, look at what an (ex)Microsoft employee says about Microsoft alleged standard:
” Proprietary specifications of de facto technologies are NOT standards. They don’t exist to encourage multiple implementations of the technology for the consumer, but rather to encourage multiple complements to the technology, therefore increasing the value proposition of the de facto technology for the vendor. They serve a very different economic purpose. All of Microsoft’s claims about being “the standard” are the antithesis of the standardization efforts the Commonwealth want to support.”
Anyway you discredit yourself when you suggest that the SFLC is a “front organization” for Sun and IBM.
Dennis Byron said,
March 17, 2008 at 10:16 am
To Roy Schestowitz:
So don’t you think the fact that you made four incredible errors in just about 50 words means you should delete the post from your blog (I don’t work for IDC, I have not obsessed about any standard, I am not pro OOXML and am in fact consistently anti all Open international Standards, and I don’t know you)
To the latter point, I have never heard of Boycott Novell (that’s not a criticism; I do very little research on Novell so it does not surprise me that I never heard of it). I checked my three blogs and find no comment from you so I’m not sure what my email was about.
I will check my email files and see what I find. If I find an email to you, it is still highly unlikely that I would have “accused you of anything” since I don’t accuse anyone of anything; I’m libertarian.
Do the right thing and remove this post.
– Dennis Byron
Victor Soliz said,
March 17, 2008 at 10:22 am
Nothing stops MS from implementing ODF support. Absolutely NOTHING.
Logan said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:53 am
Dear Mr. Byron, you seem an educated person, so why write such nonsense?
“A key issue for investors is the concerted effort by Sun, Red Hat and others to lock SAP, Microsoft and others out of certain government markets through legislation, government regulation and so-called “international standards” bodies.”
What is this obstacle that is stopping Microsoft from gaining those government contracts? Supporting ODF. Support ODF and they’re on equal terms. At least technical.
For 20 years, every other software company as been forced to support every spec through reverse engineering just to have a chance. Now that Microsoft has to do same what does it do? Whine through people like you. Mind you these are open specs/formats not obfuscated ones like those from Microsoft.
It’s is really difficult to a company the size and wealth such as Microsoft to compete on equal terms, even with a head start. With all the financial and technical resources at their disposal but even so they are incapable of this. Why is that?
Big bad IBM, Red Hat and their minions; and the big bad governments (that don’t want waste their money on Microsoft). This must be a conspiracy! Are you, Mr. Byron, a conspiracy theorist??
Perhaps you should advise your customers to invest on other companies besides Microsoft. I don’t think they’re ideological about it, isn’t it. What is their major concern? Money! If they can make money with other companies besides Microsoft, what should they care? Or are you telling me they are fanatics, zealots that only accept money if the money comes from Microsoft?
Investors want return from their investment, not whining, not excuses, and certainly not soap operas.
Logan said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:55 am
“I don’t accuse anyone of anything; I’m libertarian”
So libertarians don’t accuse anyone of anything, ever!?
CoolGuy said,
March 17, 2008 at 11:58 am
For these people everything starts and ends with money. Geez how much of it will satisfy these greedy people only gawd knows.
CoolGuy said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:07 pm
“3. My major research is primarily aimed at investors. A key issue for investors is the concerted effort by Sun, Red Hat and others to lock SAP, Microsoft and others out of certain government markets through legislation, government regulation and so-called “international standards” bodies.”
Facts tells us that its M$ that wants to lock everyone out of the market and have everything for themself.
After so many years we have finally a alternative to over prices and junk MS Office alternative that is free to implement and also cost wise free and works natively on Win/Mac/Linux.
How does ODF locks out competition ??? Please get your facts straight. Nothing prevents MS Office or SAP to implement ODF. While to imlement MSOOXML we need to pay royalties and get patent licenses from MS.
My major research is primarily aimed at investors.
Wooaahhh seems like you havent dont your research….
CoolGuy said,
March 17, 2008 at 12:08 pm
dont => done
sry abt the spelling mistake
paul said,
March 17, 2008 at 1:03 pm
>
Hold it. Just freakin’ hold it right there! Are you aware of what this statement implies? I worked within the medical electronics community for about 20 years (heart pacers, pacer systems, patient monitoring, and cardiology). During one year of that at one of those employers, I chaired the ISO9000 compliance committee. I have to say that normally my responses are measured and unemotional, but this comment by you is just careless. Medical electronics aside (NOT that THEY really NEED standards), consider all the other facets of a culture and economic activities and expand that to consider macro-economics.
Now how long has ISO been around? Do you think that they might have been established for a real need. When did microsoft come on the scene by comparison?
Now ms sees the ISO as a barrier to their objective. Of course, they’ll say stuff like “so-called international standards” because they want to discredit them and make them appear as if they aren’t of any value. By that statement, I’m assuming (giving you, Dennis, the benefit of the doubt) that you heard that nifty little phrase from ms first.
When ms started their whole standards approval initiative, then went right for ECMA. Everyone saw that was the soft spot in the approval process. Then suddenly there were people coming out of the woodwork that never had any involvement in standards approval before. Good grief, man, if you can’t see how manipulative and deceitful their methods are you are useless as a source of information to the investors.
And finally… > [ Spot on Victor! I bet the Redmond folks could implement ODF in no time at all. ]
Stop drinkin’ the Kool-Aid ™, Dennis, and try thinking independently. I’ll bet you supply info to Motley Fool, too, don’t you?
Roy, make sure we add his name to the cred list and don’t drop this post. He messed up, knows it, and now he wants to hide it instead of owing up to his misperceptions.
BTW, Roy, pls email me directly.
paul said,
March 17, 2008 at 1:10 pm
My apologies, everyone. I forgot that this is Wordpress had some serious tagging errors. The missing stuff is in now, I hope.
______________________________
“He or she would also see that I am against all so-called ‘international standards.’ ”
Hold it. Just freakin’ hold it right there! Are you aware of what this statement implies? I worked within the medical electronics community for about 20 years (heart pacers, pacer systems, patient monitoring, and cardiology). During one year of that at one of those employers, I chaired the ISO9000 compliance committee. I have to say that normally my responses are measured and unemotional, but this comment by you is just careless. Medical electronics aside (NOT that THEY really NEED standards), consider all the other facets of a culture and economic activities and expand that to consider macro-economics.
Now how long has ISO been around? Do you think that they might have been established for a real need. When did microsoft come on the scene by comparison?
Now ms sees the ISO as a barrier to their objective. Of course, they’ll say stuff like “so-called international standards” because they want to discredit them and make them appear as if they aren’t of any value. By that statement, I’m assuming (giving you, Dennis, the benefit of the doubt) that you heard that nifty little phrase from ms first.
When ms started their whole standards approval initiative, then went right for ECMA. Everyone saw that was the soft spot in the approval process. Then suddenly there were people coming out of the woodwork that never had any involvement in standards approval before. Good grief, man, if you can’t see how manipulative and deceitful their methods are you are useless as a source of information to the investors.
And finally… “Nothing stops MS from implementing ODF support. Absolutely NOTHING.” [ Spot on Victor! I bet the Redmond folks could implement ODF in no time at all. ]
Stop drinkin’ the Kool-Aid ™, Dennis, and try thinking independently. I’ll bet you supply info to Motley Fool, too, don’t you?
Roy, make sure we add his name to the cred list and don’t drop this post. He messed up, knows it, and now he wants to hide it instead of owing up to his misperceptions.
BTW, Roy, pls email me directly.
Roy Schestowitz said,
March 17, 2008 at 3:56 pm
“I don’t accuse anyone of anything; I’m libertarian” (Dennis)
Not at all, Dennis. You E-mailed me and called me a “Zealot”.
By the way, I have attempted to correct the post so that it does not mislead. I apologise again for thinking that you are still with IDC (where you worked for a long time). I didn’t intend to provide incorrect information.
Take care.
lalala said,
March 17, 2008 at 5:07 pm
“The general rule still stands: those who shill for OOXML are in Microsoft’s pocket”
And those who shill against it are in someone else’s pocket.
Roy Schestowitz said,
March 17, 2008 at 5:11 pm
No, most of them simply want to see competition and choice.
As for those who work for companies that oppose OOXML: Whose pocket? Oracle? KDE? Google?
Microsoft is the only one interested in OOXML. Others who pretend to be interested in it are simply paid for their support, or enjoy some form of kickbacks (you support OOXML and in return Microsoft will do x, y and z for you). Nothing has changed in that regard.
paul said,
March 17, 2008 at 5:13 pm
lalala, now you’ve piqued my curiosity.
In whose pocket am I? Whose paying me to take a position against OOXML? What company will benefit from me speaking out that OOXML be stopped?
lalala said,
March 17, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Not you paul, I didn’t even read your comments (just skimmed through them). Schestowitz seems to think everyone that doesn’t agree with whatever he says is a paid shill.
Roy Schestowitz said,
March 17, 2008 at 10:53 pm
No, I just tend to check for affiliations where there are no disclosures. What is often found that there’s an explanation for bias.
CoolGuy said,
March 18, 2008 at 12:02 am
At BARC there is a internal notice to use Linux only. Why ?
Did India get paid for doing this or was pressured by Google/IBM.
No !!
India did that becuase we wanted to get rid of costly/proprietory/licenses/malware/virus ridden stuff.
Look at how many hours are wasted fixing stupid Win boxes – just to get them to do basic things like word processor and internet.
Go ODF !!
Roy Schestowitz said,
March 18, 2008 at 12:46 am
Noteworthy is yesterday’s news from USA Today about 40% of all PCs that are connected to the Web being zombies, i.e. controlled by a cybercriminal. That makes over 300 million compromised Windows PCs out there on the Web doing crime.
rob enderle said,
May 16, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I just love reading these lunatics who actually believe the Microsoft FUD of Free Software=communism.
Im not old enough to know the cold war but it is fascinating part of our history but its nice of Mr Byron to bring it back to us in full farce.
Reminded me of that nutjob who got his 15mins when he banned Firefox from his site because of socialism or the devil, Im not sure which but it really didnt matter.
Since I have never heard of him, can someone tell me if people actually listen to his ramblings?