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Furthermore, Google actually actively fights user lock in with the "Data Liberation Front". Decide that Google has gone evil and you no longer want to use their

Furthermore, Google actually actively fights user lock in with the "Data Liberation Front". Decide that Google has gone evil and you no longer want to use their services? Grab your data and get out. It's the exact opposite of the kind of crap Microsoft pulled.

kenjackson 16y ago
That's not the same thing. With Word and Excel you could always save to RTF, TXT, or CSV. Plus supporting exporting to a huge host of 3rd party proprietary formats as well. But people wanted the full fidelity of the MS file formats on different systems. Like I want the full power of GMail with a different ad provider. Getting the data out is easy. You could do that with any version of Word/Excel. In fact, you could have built automation tools to do this, drop it into an ETL, and have it anywhere you like. The data is rarely the full issue. It's the fidelity of service that people want.
- nkassis 16y ago
  Even basic fidelity was not possible due to some really complex issues (excel date format) which were not documented anywhere. Look at the PDF format, it's a very complex format that almost no one fully support, but the 95% of features people use are supported in a bunch of non-adobe viewers and creators. This only happened after adobe made the PDF spec open. And they still make a ton of money off Adobe Acrobat.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I just exported a bunch of date fields to a CSV. They look fine. Probably 95% of Excel files in use can be exported as a CSV and capture all the data.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > With Word and Excel you could always save to RTF, TXT, or CSV. Good luck with your formulas in CSV... > Getting the data out is easy. You could do that with any version of Word/Excel. Ken... I have had problems with different releases of Office (PC and Mac) importing Office documents... It was never easy. It wasn't even very predictable.

kenjackson 16y ago

That's not the same thing. With Word and Excel you could always save to RTF, TXT, or CSV. Plus supporting exporting to a huge host of 3rd party proprietary formats as well. But people wanted the full fidelity of the MS file formats on different systems. Like I want the full power of GMail with a different ad provider. Getting the data out is easy. You could do that with any version of Word/Excel. In fact, you could have built automation tools to do this, drop it into an ETL, and have it anywhere you like. The data is rarely the full issue. It's the fidelity of service that people want.

nkassis 16y ago
Even basic fidelity was not possible due to some really complex issues (excel date format) which were not documented anywhere. Look at the PDF format, it's a very complex format that almost no one fully support, but the 95% of features people use are supported in a bunch of non-adobe viewers and creators. This only happened after adobe made the PDF spec open. And they still make a ton of money off Adobe Acrobat.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I just exported a bunch of date fields to a CSV. They look fine. Probably 95% of Excel files in use can be exported as a CSV and capture all the data.
rbanffy 16y ago
> With Word and Excel you could always save to RTF, TXT, or CSV. Good luck with your formulas in CSV... > Getting the data out is easy. You could do that with any version of Word/Excel. Ken... I have had problems with different releases of Office (PC and Mac) importing Office documents... It was never easy. It wasn't even very predictable.