Microsoft faces third EU probe over OOXML!

Andy Updegrove has written:

"The Wall Street Journal and Information Week reported this morning that EU regulators have announced a third investigation into Microsoft's conduct on the desktop. This latest action demonstrates that while the EU has settled the case against Microsoft that ran for almost a decade, it remains as suspicious as ever regarding the software vendor's conduct, notwithstanding Microsoft's less combative stance in recent years. The news can be found in a story reported by Charles Forelle bylined in Brussells this morning. According to the Journal, the investigation will focus on whether Microsoft "violated antitrust laws during a struggle last year to ratify its Office software file format as an international standard." The article also says that the regulators are "stepping up scrutiny of the issue." The Journal cites the following as the type of activity it will look into."

My take:

Dear Microsoft:

Why not just adopt ODF like the rest of us? If it falls short, you can participate in a well established standards process and explain to all of us why ODF needs to change. We'll listen and maybe we'll learn from you. OOXML is going to make the Office XML of era 2000 look elegant by comparison.

PLEASE: work within the community, not by yourself.

Adobe Tech Summit

I wish I could talk about all the cool things going on at the 2008 Adobe Tech Summit.  Unfortunately, this is largely an internal show and a chance for Adobe engineers and inventors to mingle and share ideas.  To me, this is probably the single largest gathering of really intelligent people I have ever witnessed.

More later.

Flex, AIR teams at Adobe Rock!!!

I have been using the latest build for Flex Builder 3 beta 3 (available for free download here) for my latest set of speaking engagements and personal development. I want to publicly acknowledge that this is by far the greatest version of Flex Builder ever made. The Adobe team responsible for this, including such greats as Matt Chotin, Mike Potter, Luis Polanco, Robert Christensen, Adrian Ludwig, and all the developers have done an outstanding job.

Just making a great product isn't the whole story. The team I work on (Technical Evangelism) is probably the most nit-picky group for any product team to cater to. On top of that, they have around 50 beta testers who are regularly dishing out feature requests, bug reports, and a host of other demands on their minds.

There are hundreds of others who I cannot name here on my blog who have worked on Flex Builder 3. To honor their work, take the Flex Builder 3 public beta 3 for a test drive. If you want a mini-cookbook of Flex and AIR projects, with full source code, please email me (dnickull at adobe dot com) and I'll send it over. It also has a script to show you how to take full advantage of the new features in Flex Builder 3 and the latest AIR 1.0.

Glowing review of Web 2.0 book

Scott Mark has offered a glowing review of our upcoming O'Reilly book "Web 2.0 Design Patterns".

"Duane, James, and Dion captured a high-speed drive by of all things 2.0, carefully deconstructing all of the cool tools we’ve been having so much fun with recently. They setup the book with a dissection of some flagship Web 2.0 properties, and contextualization of key memes. Next they define applicable models for capturing Web 2.0 in a pattern language. One my favorite aspects of this chapter was the use of “low end” modeling techniques - such as concept maps, and HTML tags as a form of WSDL for simple HTTP services. Being an Agilist and a practicalist, I like to see less well refined techniques legitimized. In true 2.0 style, the authors use what works, not just what is academically proscribed."

Read more here.