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> That is at least debatable. Word is very successful as a product, yes.
> But is .doc used for anything except data exchange with Word? I don't
> believe so, and therefore I would not call it a successful format.
Virtually every word processor on the planet can read .doc. Most report
software (i.e. Crystal Reports) outputs to Word format. RoboHelp is entirely
dependant on Word as are many other applications. Acrobat can output Word
format. Most resume storage programs can read Word docs natively.
Yeah - I'd say Word's .doc format has been successful.
> So they are, although it seems wrong to automatically condemn a
> standard just because it has been created by a committee. One could
> argue that all the classic Internet standards were created by committee
> (in the RFC process), and many of them certainly have been successful.
That's because they were adopted and extended by companies and the market. The
key to the success of any standard is how widely it is adopted. Many standards
are great ideas, but they never get any traction in the market. As such, their
value is minimal.
Committees can (and sometimes do) produce perfectly good standards. The real
issue isn't who created the standard - its who uses it. If nobody uses a
standard, it doesn't really matter who made it.
However, committees do tend to be slower and less responsive to market whims.
Hence, companies fill in this gap and extend and produce their own standards.
> It does not seem possible to judge a standard - file format or
> otherwise - by its creation process or creating entity.
No, you judge a standard by how widely it is accepted. Its creation, however,
has a profound impact on its acceptance. International consortiums tend to be
painfully slow and as such, their standards often don't win acceptance because
companies (like Microsoft) have long since forged ahead of the consortium and
devised their own standards.
This, of course, frustrates the hell out of standard purists who demand that
everything conform to "the common good."
Basically, its a tug of war of control. The standards bodies want control and
therefore they use the "we have the best interests of everybody in mind" which
anybody with 1/20th of a brain knows is BS. And the corporations use the "we
have the best interests of our customers in mind" which anybody with 1/5th of
brain stem knows is BS as these companies merely want something profitable.
In the end, the markets are what need to decide. Sometimes private standards
triumph, other times open standards are winners. Its when we get into the
"EVERYTHING MUST BE DONE ONE DIVINE PURE WAY AND ALL OTHER WAYS MUST BE
CRUSHED!!!" kind of thinking that causes trouble.
Standard purists like to level claims against private groups for "polluting"
standards. Yet the companies see this as merely augmenting and improving those
standards. I am apt to believe the companies, because in many cases, those
companies are adding and augmenting already established standards to suit the
needs of their product designs.
And standards are not meant to be followed to the letter. They are intended to
set a baseline or "minimum requirements." Companies have been "polluting"
standards since the beginning of time. The whole idea of a standard is to level
the playing field at a certain point. Companies need to go above and beyond
that standard to make their products more valuable to customers.
The standard bodies get angry about the "pollution" process because suddenly
they have lost control when the private company makes big money off the new
"polluted" standard.
Its really all about control. People have serious emotional problems with big
companies, like MS, because they have a lot of money. The fact is, if MS
imploded tomorrow, somebody else would just step in and take their place. There
will always be the big players and the little players. And the market has room
for everybody who is willing to play the game.
Andrew Plato
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