SeanMcb.com

Earlier this month, I thought that Microsoft might be starting to show an about face in their online strategy. First, great hoopla was raised in the blogosphere over the release of Simple Sharing Extensions. Frederico Oliveira over at WeBreakStuff certainly had positive things to say about it (although he also had positive things to say about the XBOX 360…) SSE allows bidirectional sharing of items and outlines using RSS and OPML (from what I understand), and it’s release by Microsoft under a Creative Commons license. Sounds good right? Could Ray Ozzie and Microsoft be turning their online strategy back towards the narrow path?

Then, I see the news that Microsoft will be submitting its Office XML formats to an open standards committee. Hey, I’m all for open standards! More chances for cross-development, 3rd party extension, etc. etc. Sounds great! I guess Microsoft is finally starting to see the light!

To top it all off, I hear that Microsoft is now officially recommending that Mac users stop using IE for Mac (the horrible browser that Microsoft stopped supporting a long while ago.) Fantastic! Now more Mac users will make the leap to the much better Safari or Firefox (if they haven’t already), making things easier for web developers like myself. Dealing with crappy browsers really ruins my day. More good news from Redmond.

However, after the initial state of euphoria of the positive media feedback loop wore off, I began to encounter some less enthusiastic interpretations of these events. An article in the Register refers to concerns that Microsoft may be trying to take control of the RSS open standard by “extending” it. (They’ve tried to use this strategy before with other open standards. The old divide and conquer-with-superior-market-share routine.) A post made around the same time on digg linking to Microsoft’s SSE FAQ page was titled “Microsoft’s Embrace and Extend (and monopolize) for RSS”, echoing this sentiment of distrust.

There is also skepticism about the “openness” of Microsoft’s new Office format licenses. Various articles from eWeek and ZDNet accuse MS of simply trying to create the appearance of openness while still maintaining control over the formats. As long as they can change the formats on a whim, they will be able to stay ahead of any other entities that want to implement the standard. In addition, MS could still charge licensing fees on patents to entities wishing to write files in the formats. That sounds substantially less “open” to me.

Luckily, there is no darker side to the story of the IE Mac phaseout. However, that story also garnered the least positive blog and media response. It’s interesting to me that a few simple press releases or leaked plans from Microsoft can garner an instant frenzy of positive attention. Only later do posts start to appear that objectively examine the possible motives and consequences of these announcements. Unfortunately, it appears that nothing has changed. Micro$oft is still up to the same old tricks.