OS/2 Shareware BBS: 14 Text/14-Text.zip/odlts96b.txt

Text File | 1996-09-25 | 16KB | 353 lines

OpenDoc or Irrelevance: A User View of OpenDoc Benefits and
Why the Customers and Business Partners of
Lotus Development Corporation and Other Software Vendors
Need To Have These Firms OpenDoc-Enable Their Software Products

July 1996


Background
----------

I work for a company that is one member of a confederation of about
70 companies.  During 1996, I will be connecting to our inter-company
electronic mail environment.  Currently, about half of the companies
have gateways between their inhouse mainframe and/or LAN based email
system and our current inter-company electronic mail system.

In our environment, I expect a mix of inter-company electronic mail.
The electronic mail will mostly use ASCII or Microsoft Office 3.x, 4.x
formats.  There will also be some Lotus SmartSuite document formats
and some Corel WordPerfect Suite (formerly called Novell PerfectOffice)
document formats.

Initially, I expect little or no use of OLE objects or ActiveX Objects
(Note 1) inside the electronic mail documents.  However, over the next
one or two years, I expect the number of OLE-enabled compound documents
(documents with OLE objects inside them) to grow significantly.  I will
need to be able to edit some of these compound documents and some of the
OLE objects inside them.  I and many other Lotus SmartSuite users in our
confederation and in other businesses and homes will have
THE REQUIREMENT.

THE REQUIREMENT: LOTUS SMARTSUITE MUST BE ABLE TO EDIT MICROSOFT OFFICE
                 OLE OBJECTS INSIDE COMPOUND DOCUMENTS.


OpenDoc Equivalent Editors, THE REQUIREMENT and Lotus Smartsuite
----------------------------------------------------------------

According to the IBM Visual Revolution roadshow that I attended in June
of 1995 (see Attachment - point 1), OpenDoc has the benefit of being
more flexible than OLE when editing objects inside compound documents:

    - OLE requires the user to use the exact editor to edit
      an object inside a compound document.

      For example, Excel must be used to edit Excel objects
      inside a compound document.

      In general, Microsoft Office/Office95/Office97... is the only
      OLE-enabled software office suite that can edit
      Microsoft Office/Office95/Office97... objects
      inside a compound document.

    - OpenDoc allows the user to use an "equivalent editor" to edit an
      object inside a compound document.

      For example, an OpenDoc-enabled version of any spreadsheet that
      has import/export conversion filters for Excel formats,
      e.g. Lotus 1-2-3, Mesa Spreadsheet for OS/2, Quattro Pro
      or StarCalc could be used to edit Excel objects
      inside a compound document.

      In general, any OpenDoc-enabled office suite that has
      import/export conversion filters for Microsoft formats
      should be able to edit Microsoft Office/Office 95/Office 97...
      objects inside a compound document.

Lotus SmartSuite 4.0 for Windows and Lotus SmartSuite 96 for Windows 95
support OLE and cannot fulfill THE REQUIREMENT.

Lotus SmartSuite 96 for OS/2 Warp does not support OLE or OpenDoc and
cannot fulfill THE REQUIREMENT.

However, Merlin, the code name for the next version of OS/2 Warp, which
is currently in beta test, will support OpenDoc.  This is a start.
Furthermore, a rumor says that the Merlin BonusPak will be
OpenDoc-enabled.  This might help with THE REQUIREMENT if the following
were true of the IBM Works component of the Merlin BonusPak:

 1. IBM Works becomes a series of OpenDoc parts.  In particular, the
    word processor and the spreadsheet become OpenDoc parts.

 2. IBM Works includes import/export filters for file formats for
    current suites: Office 4.x, SmartSuite and Perfect Office.
    As an extra piece of information, the Office 95 word processor
    (WinWord 7) and spreadsheet (Excel 7) are supposed to use the
    same file formats as the Office 4.x word processor (WinWord 6)
    and spreadsheet (Excel 5) respectively.

 IBM MUST MAKE SURE THAT IBM WORKS IS OPENDOC-ENABLED AS
 DESCRIBED ABOVE.

However, an OpenDoc-enabled BonusPak will only carry me
(and other users) so far.  The functionality of the IBM Works
word processor and spreadsheet are only a small subset of the
functions included in Microsoft Office/Office 95/Office 97 and
SmartSuite 96/SmartSuite 97.

I and many others require Lotus SmartSuite to become OpenDoc-enabled.
Otherwise, in the current marketplace with Microsoft Office's 80 percent
market share, we will have to transfer our activities eventually to
Microsoft Office/Office 95/Office 97...

This conclusion is supported by a telephone call-in survey that
Computer Reseller News published in it April 22, 1996 issue and
reported in the May 6, 1996 issue on page 17:

 "After cutting its prices on SmartSuite, will Lotus grab
  more market share from Microsoft Office?"

    Yes: 22 percent
    No:  78 percent

In other words, if and only if Lotus and IBM OpenDoc-enable SmartSuite
as a series of OpenDoc parts, will they be able to grow SmartSuite's
market share significantly.

OpenDoc Benefits for Lotus SmartSuite Beyond Equivalent Editors
---------------------------------------------------------------

Using OpenDoc equivalent editors to achieve interoperability with
Microsoft Office is the "ante" for introducing an OpenDoc-enabled
Lotus Smartsuite into an otherwise Microsoft Office-dominant
environment.  An OpenDoc-enabled version of Lotus Smartsuite would
provide other significant benefits to users beyond interoperability
(see Attachment - points 2, 3 and 4).

The examples described in Attachment points 2, 3 and 4 show that
compound documents built using an OpenDoc-enabled version of
Lotus Smartsuite can contain richer content and richer internal and
external linking that are limited only by the imagination of users
(and of course, the variety of available OpenDoc parts).  By comparison,
documents built using Microsoft Office and OLE Controls (OCXs) are more
limited and provide mostly modest automation of what were previously
manual document processes (e.g. clipboard) or simplified demonstrations
of the possibilities of compound documents (e.g. activation of irregular
shaped picture of an object inside a rectangular frame).

All of the four benefits of OpenDoc listed in the Attachment would
justify introducing an OpenDoc-enabled Lotus SmartSuite into
environments with significant amounts of Microsoft Office and would
also give Lotus a sustainable competitive advantage in environments
that had not yet established an office suite standard.

OpenDoc Benefits and Lotus Notes
--------------------------------

Furthermore, Microsoft is reported to be tying Microsoft Office into
Microsoft BackOffice, including Microsoft Exchange, the client/server
electronic mail product.  Microsoft has added replication for nomadic
users to Exchange.  Finally, Microsoft is Internet-enabling
Office 97 (much as Lotus has Internet-enabled parts of SmartSuite 96
and is further Internet-enabling SmartSuite 97) and BackOffice
(much as Notes is being further Internet-enabled).

As these Microsoft product improvements occur, corporate users of
Microsoft Office seem ever more likely to want to buy
Microsoft Exchange.  They will only buy Lotus Notes in situations in
which they believe they have true groupware applications
(beyond Microsoft Exchange's capabilities) for which they wish to commit
development and support resources.

In other words, if Lotus does not OpenDoc-enable SmartSuite and grow
its market share, sales of Lotus Notes will also be negatively affected
in one to two years.

On the other hand, if Lotus OpenDoc-enables SmartSuite and Notes,
Notes and the Notes Value Added Resellers (VARs) could add value
through sales of SmartSuite in many situations that would otherwise
be closed to them.

OpenDoc Benefits and Other Software Products
--------------------------------------------

The analysis of the benefits to Lotus Smartsuite users, Lotus Notes
users and Lotus Business Partners of OpenDoc-enabling Lotus Smartsuite
and Lotus Notes extends easily to users and business partners of most
other software products/vendors.

The most obvious example of another product that would benefit from
OpenDoc-enablement is the other major software suite,
Corel WordPerfect Suite.  Lotus Smartsuite and Corel WordPerfect Suite
are competing to establish themselves over the short and medium term
as having the largest office suite market share behind Microsoft Office.

The analysis of the benefits to users and business partners from
OpenDoc-enabling a software product can be generalized to most other
software products.  OLE technology reinforces the dominance of any
OLE-enabled product that has the largest share of its market.  As this
analysis shows, OpenDoc-enabling any other product that is second,
third,... in its market will give that product a competitive advantage.
Furthermore, the market leader is unlikely to become OpenDoc-enabled
because this will encourage further OpenDoc-enablement, interoperability
and use of the superior benefits of OpenDoc over OLE.  In other words,
OpenDoc-enabling any other product (besides the market leader) is likely
to be a sustainable competitive advantage against the market leader.


----

Attachment

 Comparison of OpenDoc vs OLE Benefits

 Original Source:    IBM Visual Revolution Roadshow, June 1995.
 Presenter: J. C. Love

 The following are notes that I took at the roadshow followed by
 some other notes from earlier information that I gathered elsewhere
 (Notes 2 and 3).  Furthermore, I have subsequently updated this
 information with more fully detailed examples.

 1. Editing of embedded objects.

    - OLE requires the user to use the exact editor to edit
      an object inside a compound document.

      For example, Excel must be used to edit Excel objects
      inside a compound document.

      In general, Microsoft Office/Office95/Office97... is the only
      OLE-enabled software office suite that can edit
      Microsoft Office/Office95/Office97... objects
      inside a compound document.

    - OpenDoc allows the user to use an "equivalent editor" to edit an
      embedded object in a compound document.

      For example, an OpenDoc-enabled version of any spreadsheet that
      has import/export conversion filters for Excel formats,
      e.g. Lotus 1-2-3, Mesa Spreadsheet for OS/2, Quattro Pro
      or StarCalc could be used to edit Excel objects
      inside a compound document.

      In general, any OpenDoc-enabled office suite that has
      import/export conversion filters for Microsoft formats
      should be able to edit Microsoft Office/Office 95/Office 97...
      objects inside a compound document.

 2. Number of active objects.

    - OLE only supports one active object at a time
      inside a compound document.

      One use of OLE in which one active object at a time inside a
      compound document is insufficient is when object 3 is linked to
      object 2 which is in turn linked to object 1.  In the article
      'It's No Easy Matter Saying OK to OLE", PC Week, May 6, 1996,
      p 74 is the following report of what happened when this was tried
      using the Windows 95 versions of Microsoft Word and Excel with
      three embedded Excel objects inside a Word document.  The test
      using OLE did not work:

      "Forced to live with OLE's limitation for the time being, I
       created a third object that referenced the second.  Apparently,
       cells containing interobject references cannot themselves be
       referenced from yet another object.  OLE was crashing and burning
       around me."

    - OpenDoc supports multiple simultaneous active objects
      inside a compound document.

      The following example is typical of the types of uses of multiple
      simultaneous active objects within a compound document that
      marketing analysts, financial analysts and others might wish to
      make.  In this example, there are four objects inside the
      compound document:

      Object 1.  Region 1 spreadsheet
      Object 2.  Region 2 spreadsheet
      Object 3.  National spreadsheet = Region 1 + Region 2 spreadsheets
      Object 4.  National graphic as bar chart of data in Object 3,
                 national spreadsheet.

      The objects in the example are linked as follows:
      - Object 1 is linked to Object 3 which is linked to Object 4
      - Object 2 is linked to Object 3 which is linked to Object 4

      As can be seen from the PC Week article, this scenario does not
      work with OLE.  However, it should work with OpenDoc.

      Furthermore, it is easy to make the scenario more complicated.

      Another category of applications in which multiple simultaneous
      active objects are required is in situations in which several
      independent, constantly changing objects are running.  These
      objects might be digital video, audio, high speed graphical
      data display (e.g. stock ticker) or some other type of dynamically
      changing object.

 3. Shapes

    - OLE only uses active areas that display as rectangular shapes
      in compound documents. (see Note 2)

      Many real world objects (e.g. automobiles, machine parts, etc.)
      and knowledge worker objects (e.g. maps of multiple geographic
      regions and slices of a pie chart) are not inherently rectangular
      and must be individually enclosed in a rectangular frame if they
      are to be OLE objects.

    - OpenDoc can use active areas that display in any shape
      in compound documents.

      The above examples can be OpenDoc objects and do not need to
      be enclosed in a rectangular frame.

 4. Dragging of nested objects.

    - OLE only supports dragging of a nested object inside
      of an outer object inside a compound document.

      One example of this is a text, voice or video annotation object
      that is attached to an object that is inside a compound document.
      If the user later decides that the annotation needs to be moved
      outside of the annotated object (perhaps to another object inside
      the compound document or perhaps just to some specific location
      in the body of the compound document), then the user will have to
      copy the annotation, delete the original annotation and then paste
      the copy in the new location.

    - OpenDoc supports dragging of a nested object to outside
      of an outer object in a compound document.

      If the above example were created using objects that are OpenDoc
      objects, then the user could drag the annotation to the other
      object inside the compound document or to the specific location
      in the body of the compound document.

 Notes:

 1. In early 1996, Microsoft renamed OLE objects to be ActiveX objects
    and renamed OLE Controls to be ActiveX Controls.  This analysis uses
    the OLE name because it is more familiar to users and also because
    it is more descriptive.  OLE originally was the abbreviation for
    "object linking and embedding".

 2. Microsoft says that they will extend OLE to support active areas
    that display in any shape in compound documents.  I believe that
    no date has been announced for this improvement in OLE.

 3. Microsoft seems to have implemented (perhaps only in beta test)
    the ability of OLE to support overlapped objects.


Concluding Remarks

The author, Jonathan Handler, welcomes comments, constructive criticism
and additional information.  The author may be contacted via
Compuserve: 71702,1620, or via the Internet: [e-mail].