Microsoft Apologizes To Rival

Geoffrey.landis writes "Microsoft apologized to rival software vendor Corel Corp. for saying that Corel's file format posed a security risk, and issued a set of tools to unblock file types that had been blocked by default in the December Office 2003 service pack. In his blog on the Microsoft site, David Leblanc says 'We did a poor job of describing the default format changes.' He goes on to explain, 'We stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but this is actually not correct. A file format isn't insecure — it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure.' As noted by News.com, 'it is the parsing code that Office 2003 uses to open and save the file types that is less secure.' Larry Seltzer at pcmag.com also blogs the story."

So, what changed hands between Microsoft/Corel?

[defile]

Why would Microsoft enable a competitor, and, more ludicrously, apologize if there was no reason to? What's in this for Microsoft? Did Corel pay them a fee? Agree to cede a market? Threaten them with some kind of slam-dunk legal action that Microsoft was on the losing side of? We will probably never know.

Re:Boiled down

[joe_bruin]

It boiled down to Microsoft, instead of fixing their bad file parsing code, disabled it so customers couldn't access their older files AND blamed Corel's file format. Notice that they are still not admitting that their code is bad or fixing it, they're just re-enabling their buggy code because customers complained that they couldn't open files.

Who neutered Microsoft?

[NullProg]

'We stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but this is actually not correct. A file format isn't insecure -- it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure.'

Admitting FUD is uncharacteristic of Microsoft. Speaking the plain truth means Hell just froze over.

I'm at a loss for words....

Enjoy,

Re:Nothing Worth Selling

[pimpimpim]

I guess they realized it would be a lost cause fighting against Microsoft Office, throwing away developer time. Then again, if they would have endured and realized back then that the eternal reign of MS Office could be overthrown, they might be growing by now, at a time where switching from office** to office 2007 is just as hard as switching to another suite, and with a current public and political outcry for open document formats.

The first thing I used after wordperfect 5.1 was Lotus WordPro, since it came with my Aptiva pentium 100 "multimedia" pc. This was actually a pretty good program, it had a latex-like equation editor, and came with a nicer selection of fonts than the default MSoffice. I just checked and it appears that IBM changed the whole SmartSuite to something called "symphony" now, made it free of charge and able to work with ODF.

IBM may be on to something here, the lack of backward compatibility in MSOffice plus the high costs of obligatory contract renewals will make more and more people (better: the companies that employ these people) realize the problems MS gets them in, and look for alternatives. All these dirty tricks might end up to be MS nailing its own coffin: as soon as companies switch to another browser, to another office suite, why should they be dependent on MS at all?

It's about time....

[Rival]

[After reading just the story title] It's about time! They laid me off back in '99 five minutes after we RTM'd Win2k, and they're only just now getting around to apologizing? Well, better late than never, I suppose.

[After reading TFA] It is refreshing to see such a direct and honest explanation and rationale [msdn.com]. Even if it isn't exactly front page news, it's much better than the typical PR-filtered triple-speak that tends to get the press. A good reminder that the developers != the company.

Thanks, David. If more decision makers at Microsoft were to take a similar approach to problems, even if just internally, I think the corporate image could be improved. Whether there's time to turn the ship around before it hits the iceberg*, I don't know, but it would be an interesting thing to watch.

*Yes, I know the engine reversal and attempt to turn was what doomed the Titanic. It's a complex analogy, with layers of irony and humor.

Re:Nothing Worth Selling

[gaspyy]

Unfortunately it's not just their office.

Corel's flagship is CorelDraw, which is a actually a very capable illustration software.
Corel Draw and Corel Photo-Paint used to be on par and sometimes above competitors' products (Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand; Photo-Paint was at least as capable as Photoshop in 2000).

They stopped innovating. The last Corel Draw suite was released in 2005 (they issued 2 service packs). Photo-Paint remained untouched for years, now lagging behind Photoshop in many areas.

Such a shame. The products used to be really good in terms of features and UI. Now they've buried everything.

Re:Wait....

[random0xff]

No:

A file format (with some exceptions, like .hlp files) isn't insecure - it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure.

See how he switched from using the word 'insecure' in association with file formats, how uses the terms 'more or less secure' for describing the code they wrote.