Charles Maxson

Leaving the merry ol' land of OZ

charles — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 17:31:00 GMT

After five years of living in the Emerald City of Seattle, I have decided to trade in the rain for the California sun. Those who know me knew it was inevitable. In my book, sun and sand beats clouds and woods most any day. That said, my time here was enjoyable and the people made it a very pleasant stay. But on I must go...

Tomorrow I will drive top-down as soon as the northwest coastal clouds permit, until I reach the south end of the Los Angeles metropolis. My new base will be Irvine in Orange County. My mission will be to evangelize the Information Worker platform to Microsoft partners. Next week, my orange badge will turn blue, another inevitable prediction for those keeping score, with a new challenge on spreading ‘the love’ of Office all over southern California.

I will always be an Office Zealot at heart, but officially our numbers must drop by one. I want to pay my most humble respect and gratitude to the wonderful and talented Mr. Chris Kunicki. He has endured my tenure while making OZ an interesting, exciting and worthwhile venture. I will forever be indebted and inspired by him and ever so thankful for his friendship.

For those of you who ‘tuned’ in, thank you as well. Your support, questions, comments, feedback, etc. has been amazing… keep pushing. I hope to carry some reincarnation of OZ-like enthusiasm for the IW client under my new MSFT banner so please stay tuned while I sort it all out.

Thanks,

Charles

What's in a name? 'ThinkFree', think not...

charles — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 20:54:00 GMT

This just has me wondering....

“ThinkFree^® is the leader in next-generation productivity solutions for platform independent, anytime, anywhere-computing. ThinkFree usability extends beyond PCs and is perfect for Internet-connected devices, including thin client and mobile computing platforms.” .... so their site says...fine... their product, ThinkFree Office 3, is a Microsoft Office competitor (which shares a bizarrely, similar name). Good I say. Helps drive innovation...

Note however, that although I know little else about the project, I find the name “ThinkFree” highly ironic. They currently charge $49.95 for their download edition of Office 3. Clearly not free. You may consider that a nominal amount for an Office suite (I haven't evaluated it so I really can't say if it's 'fairly priced'), but it's not free. Cool name maybe, but not representative of the truth. Free is free. Not $49, not $29 not $9, free. ThinkFree? Think again. Maybe ThinkCheaper.... it is cheaper, better? I dunno... but cheaper. That it is.

Maybe I will just refer to them as “ThinkCheaper”. What do you think?

Here's the ThinkCheaper Office site: http://www.thinkfree.com/ ... if you want their free version of Office, it's available for just $49.95....

Sun sets in Scotland

charles — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 20:45:00 GMT

File this under interesting tidbet for the next time someone tells you open source productivity tools (Office suties) are the way to go....

“The Central Scotland Police is removing Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice productivity software from about 400 PCs and switching to Microsoft Corp.'s Office System, citing lower maintenance costs and the need to interoperate more smoothly with other departments running Windows....”

For more check out http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/11/HNscottishpolice_1.html

Another show, another show... (John Peltonen of 3Sharp)

charles — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 07:55:00 GMT

Looks like we have discovered that talking is easier then typing since podcasts are showing up faster then blog posts.... guess you can blame it on summer ;) .... Anyway, check out show #6 with John Peltonen of 3Sharp. He is the lead Arch on the Fabrikam and Generico sample solutions that have shipped thru MSFT on Office development. Check it out here...

A conversation on XML in "Office 12" with Brian Jones...

charles — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 00:02:00 GMT

Brian Jones is one of the key program manager's at Microsoft responsible for delivering on the XML vision in “Office 12”. Chris and I had the opportunity to talk with Brian in the latest Office Zealot podcast. Brian has totally been a busy camper both inside MSFT working on “Office 12” as well as outside in his newly published blog @ http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones to go along with talks at Tech*Ed and the upcoming PDC. When you listen to Brian in the podcast, he makes it all sound so simple and obvious but you can tell he has been thinking about this way, way long before it has ever come to fruition. If you are interested in “Office 12”, or even what the new Office Open XML Formats means to Office users of versions past, stay tuned to his blog. He has made a real concentrated effort to share where MSFT is going and I want to commend him on using the medium well!