Michael,
Thanks for the reply .. a couple notes
".. Word - for one example - is a "standard" that is changed by MS every so often for no apparent purpose other than to screw the competition .. "
I get it. You are a MS hater and that is cool. I am not that fond of them either which is why we use OpenOffice in our business and on my systems at home. But the simple fact is that there are millions of users. Some of them are clients.
" Unless the standard is open, published, unrestricted and not under the
control of a single commercial entity, it is not a standard - it is proprietary. You may like the idea of chasing a moving, camouflaged target, but I don't."
Never said it was a standard, I said it was 'universal' which, of course, is a very different thing. Also I never suggested that '.. chasing a moving, camouflaged target ..'. Unless MS removed every 'text' word from their document I don't see where an extension that could index the words would be a moving target. Now possibly MW has been designed in a way that would make this not possible, I haven't gotten that far. But I have written, other environments, methods of scanning word docs.
"Supporting an open standard and encouraging companies like MS to allow export of their products' files in the open standard format as an alternative to their own is a better solution. MS already exports to RTF, txt and other formats. Adding an open format shouldn't be a big deal."
Do you think that MS gives a crap whether MW is or is not capable of indexing word documents? Unless, of course you feel able to calling Bill and having him change his format.
I believe that the market place will decide, rightly or wrongly (and who decides that?), what tools and "standards" will be used. It is my job as a consultant to give the user the best information and let them decide. Then either support the client in their decision or go find another client.
Of course right now it doesn't really matter as the only TYPE is IMAGE and MW doesn't appear to be able to search on it (which makes sense if the only type I wanted to store was IMAGE.
Thanks for the note. It is much like discussions I have with Linux friends <G>
Dave Sigafoos wrote:
There are a couple formats that seem to be 'universal' whether we like it or not. Word, excel, ppt, pdf then emerging standards like those coming from open office.
Word - for one example - is a "standard" that is changed by MS every so often for no apparent purpose other than to screw the competition. The latest Office 2007 version apparently breaks a lot of other products because of changes to the "standard".
Unless the standard is open, published, unrestricted and not under the control of a single commercial entity, it is not a standard - it is proprietary. You may like the idea of chasing a moving, camouflaged target, but I don't.
Supporting an open standard and encouraging companies like MS to allow export of their products' files in the open standard format as an alternative to their own is a better solution. MS already exports to RTF, txt and other formats. Adding an open format shouldn't be a big deal.
Mike
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