Do you love Microsoft?

NCC is a rather odd organization. Back in the days when the UK overtly believed that the role of government was to cooperate with big companies, it was founded to persuade such companies to buy their computer equipment from ICL, the UK’s rival to IBM.

Anyone not close to what used to be retirement age will wonder what on earth I am talking about. I must admit it seems like a quaint and bygone era even to me. Anyway, the NCC reinvented itself and is now some kind of membership organization (The National Computing Centre Ltd) with an office not far from Lincoln’s Inn in London.

It organized a day at which representatives from Microsoft (OpenXML), various (ODF) and Adobe (PDF) were to talk to users. The purpose was apparently to give guidance and input to BSI in mulling over how the BSI should vote on OpenXML in JTC1. Some people were apparently wearing more than one hat, but there appeared to be about 6 from NCC, 3 from MS, 6 from IBM/Sun/ODF Alliance, 2 from Adobe, 3 from BSI and 7 users. So the users were somewhat outnumbered and also tended to say much less.

Things got off to a sticky start. Technical matters were outlawed by NCC, on the basis that the users might not understand them. Political (broadly defined as non-technical) matters were also outlawed by NCC on the basis that tempers might flare.

I quickly discovered what outlawed meant when I attempted, rather diffidently, to introduce a financial point about the profits MS was making on Office. Three NCC folk interrupted/drowned out what I was trying to say (rather like that splendid passage in one of the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas). After arguing for maybe 20 seconds I gave up, somewhat taken aback (as I think were some of the others present).

Fortunately, the rather genial Michael Gough (NCC CEO, chairing the proceedings) decided to relax his rules in the course of day and allowed more contentious and more technical material.

All in all, it was for me absolutely fascinating - in all sorts of ways. At one level, it was simply interesting to meet and chat to people whom I only knew through their blogs. It was also interesting to see how some people are much more persuasive on paper than in the flesh and others the opposite.

Perhaps the most interesting moment came near the end of the proceedings when everyone was asked to give an uninterrupted minute or two on what they had got from the meeting, or wanted others to remember. One of the users, who had been fairly quiet up to that point launched into a forceful attack on MS, IBM, Sun for bickering amongst themselves instead of addressing his needs. He had no interest in the history of this standard or that or whether this vendor or that had boycotted this standard-setting process or that, he simply wanted more focus on his needs.

I found that salutary. This guy had taken out a whole day from work for no immediate payback, so he was clearly interested in the topic. But his eyes still glazed. The fact that he overpaying by a factor maybe 10 for his office software did not seem to have crossed his mind. The fact that MS was only opening up one of many barriers (the Office file formats) protecting ts monopoly position, because of sustained pressure by IBM, Sun and umpteen unpaid volunteers in the Open Source and standards communities, none of that had occurred to him or apparently interested him. He had listened to both sides and decided they were as bad as each other.

That, of course, is the problem with leaving it to the market and the press to challenge a monopoly. It doesn’t work too well. The monopolist is exceedingly well-funded on its monopoly profits and has no difficulty confusing the issue, and indeed leading others to confuse the issue. As I have discussed in an earlier post, persuading Adam Farquhar of the British Library to champion OpenXML was a masterstroke.