But this study is sure to create an impact in the minds of more and more people, and ultimately drive Microsoft to their worst nightmare of Open Source taking over the corporate word (at least). But let’s talk about Government Initiative in the Open Source… Now there’s a catch!

WARNING: In the following section, I might sound Frankenstein running after NIC’s to rip it’s neck of it’s body.

IBPS Site may damage your PC

Does government actually support FOSS Initiatives ? I don’t know if you are looking at th small line at the bottom of most of the Government websites, where it says – “Please use Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or “Best viewed on Internet Explorer 5.5 or above” or something analogous. Does it

SBI site is on ASP (Microsoft Active Server Pages) meaning NOT FOSS, they are using Microsoft Technologies and are actually not leveraging the benefits of FOSS where they can be best achieved – WEB and SERVER Technologies. If you anytime in your life have applied for any of the Country’s bank exams be it PO, Managerial or Clerk, you have to visit the site of Institute of Banking Peronnel Selection (IBPS). You would notice that it won’t open on Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari or Google Chrome – it’s is simply loyal to Microsoft Technology – Internet Explorer.

Let’s visualize a simple example, where a person who loves linux or cannot afford Microsoft Window Operating System and want’s to make every move chaste, without the pains of proprietary software involved – Is demoralize, demotivated, his faith shattered to dust with a website popping up saying I need INTERNET EXPLORER! That wasn’t the idea of Tim Berner’s lee when he proposed Internet.

Does Government really support FOSS?

If the government really want’s to take initiatives, it should have made all the websites on NON-Microsoft Technologies, it would have saved them Millions actually Billions. Today NIC has 90% of their websites being maintained on proprietary – age old technologies, that are in no way match for today’s glossy looking, superbly interactive, and Intelligent websites. Are they ? They don’t even look like Corporate/Identity websites for Company information. Even if NOW!, after going through the Prof. Rahul De reports they think of moving from proprietary to FOSS Tech’s – who the hell be accountable for the earlier un-informed baseless decisions ?

The only one of the few website I’ve seen is the NIC’s Indigov. Its’ one of the best website, and based around php. Now what new I see is a Quality certificate being attached to the website by SQTC. Does that make a difference? What is then W3C for? CDAC, NOIDA has been one of the biggest contributor and promoter of W3C in Indian Government sector. However, now NIC & SQTC comes out with their Certificate attached to the website, ignoring all the work done so far in the field by W3C and unnecessarily putting  their precious efforts into standards that have been pre-established. No doubt the website is accessible, but that accounts to just 0.1% of the websites NIC is hosting/developing/maintaining (I would rather say lingering on with). Most of the disabled people are ignored in the country (I know low floor buses just landed in Delhi, but that’s just Delhi -not India right!) and Information Technology is the last seen area where you could consider disabled people to be preferred – in INDIA.

The author is not Anti-Microsoft, he just want the web to be independent, free from the boundaries just like a free bird.  As Internet / Web was essentially created to be platform-independent so that we could; and today as we are able to browse websites over Mobile Phone, Browser’s across operating systems like – Windows, Mac and Linux. And they look same everywhere.

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Viewing OneNote in web browser

“Microsoft is not a web company”, Google is! Microsoft is just diversifying, probably because -

• It has recognized, most of the users spend their time on internet Google.

Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS enables firms lower costs,
optimize IT resources,
Shift from capital to operating expenses
SaaS can help Microsoft target enterprises that are resistant to large scale deployment/upgrades.
Customization / Consumerization – Firms increasingly allow workers to choose the platform of their choice be it Microsoft Window, Apple’s MAC or Linux.
Ad Revenue – Microsoft wants to tap the growing revenue from ad-supported services for consumers.

- As analyzed by Gartner.

Viewing Word in web browser

However with great products NEWS come great responsibility, actually to keep on your words is all that matters. By announcing several advance launches -

• Microsoft Windows 7 (Microsoft’s answer to VISTA Bugs),
• Microsoft Azure (The cloud computing platform from Microsoft),
• Microsoft Surface (The New User Interface experience from Microsoft) and the
• Web Version of Microsoft Office

I personally feel its trying to get consumers think more Microsoft even when they are Googling. Gartner says it might slow down the adoption of Google Apps and other personal productivity application, but my gut feelings says it would invite more awareness about Google Docs as an alternative, as well as consumers would use it as a benchmarking to compare what Web version of Office doesn’t offer and might even drive customers to Google if MS fails to meet the expectations.

Editing in OneNote

Gartner has quite well analyzed about Office Web Applications, it suspects Office Web  Applications will -

1. Have a limited set of functions compared with traditional Office
2. Be optimized for use with SilverLight (Microsoft’s rich Internet application)
3. Use SharePoint for the container for collaboration
4. Have offline facilities

Now if Microsoft proves Gartner right, Point 1 will bound to go against Microsoft. If you ever had used Google Docs, I believe it has almost all the features you are looking for in a Document Editor. The best of being it being exported as PDF, and other formats.  But then Point 4 will complement it. So it’s like you can have the web version but it won’t be complete until you buy Microsoft Products . Point 2 Silverlight will probably the interface engine for Web version of Office Application. Microsoft has been quite agressive about spreading Silverlight, Silverlight has been released for linux too. Microsoft is making sure no corner lefts untouched. Moreover Microsoft has been developing Interfaces for its enterprise products on Silverlight too. Microsoft Health Common User Interface is one of the examples and it looks quite impressive.

Editing in Word

Gartner also concluded the challenges Microsoft has to confront while delivering its promise -

1. Limiting the impact on Microsoft’s traditional Office revenue model
2. Re-engineering 20 years of technology for the Web
3. Competing with Google, which offers some compelling features such as real-time
   document collaboration
4. We believe Web versions of personal productivity applications will generally supplement
   locally installed versions, although in some cases, users needing limited functions will
   use Web versions exclusively.

Microsoft has already taken a step by launching www.officelive.com Office live provides

• Anywhere access to your documents,
• Sharing of your documents
• Preview of your documents without any office suit installed.
• Facility to open or save files directly from your favorite office suite.

The service is available for use to both Home users as well as small Business users. I suspect microsoft will shift the service on its cloud computing platform – Azure when it finally launches the Now! Anticipated Web version of Microsoft Office.

Till then keep your finger crossed, hope the clashes of titans helps users get the best! Adios for now!

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