Microsoft Heads Toward Web -2.0

No, that isn't a typo in the title; Microsoft has apparently decided that not only is Web 2.0 a passing phase, but that we should enter the time warp and head back to the days of the Xerox Star system, with one file format that talks to no other. We all know what happened to the Xerox Star; could this be the first major chip in the Microsoft foundation?

As many are discovering, the "new and improved" Microsoft Word 2007 seems targeted directly at the proliferation of web document systems, and I can only imagine the number one target was Google Docs, although other document systems from Peepel to Open Office are similarly affected.

Microsoft Word 2007 uses a new format known as .docx which is incompatible with just about everything under the sun, from Open Office-based documents to online document systems to the most recent Microsoft Word release for Macs. I'm sure Microsoft views this as a sort of "forced upgrade" in that once one person upgrades, since anyone they are sending files to has to upgrade can't view or update the files, they'll have to upgrade as well.

The problem is, not everyone is biting. Microsoft has released a converter on their Mactopia site to at least alleviate their own problem with incompatible Mac and PC versions of Word, but that doesn't help the rest of the world.

Two leading science journals - Science and Nature - are refusing to accept submissions composed in Microsoft Word 2007 due to the fact that the .docx format is incompatible with their internal publishing process. That should be enough to strike fear into the hearts of academia about upgrading, but the writing community is also having problems.

There is a proliferation of converters and widgets available for helping those who are still using older versions of Word as well as Open Office and web office formats, but as many are finding out, the conversion programs can make the problems even worse. Forums are abuzz with writers who, looking for a quick fix, end up with malware, either from clients trying to be compatible with writers, or vice versa.

Add this together with Microsoft's recent hiring of Tom Hanrahan, formerly Director of Engineering at the Linux Foundation as the "Director of Linux Operability" working on the Microsoft/Novell interoperability, and you have to wonder if Microsoft isn't actually trying to reinforce the walls. Google is quickly taking over the overpowering entity role that Microsoft once held, and Microsoft seems to be responding by battening down the hatches. It seems they have decided to leave the forward-thinking to the younger kids on the block.