Object Management Groups says Microsoft rigged meeting
By Niall McKay
IDG News Service, London Bureau
he result of Tuesday's meeting in New York, where the Open Group was chosen
to manage
the ActiveX standards process, was a foregone conclusion despite a vote
taken that day,
according to vendors and the Object Management Group (OMG).
For instance, the Dublin, Ireland-based Object Request Broker (ORB) vendor Iona
Technologies had been invited to attend the meeting last Monday. But
following a press report in
which Iona's chief technology officer Annrai O'Toole called Microsoft's
DCOM "a brain-dead
protocol," he was uninvited.
"We only want people who were going to be constructive about ActiveX to
attend the
meeting," said Mike Pryke-Smith, Microsoft's Internet tools product
manager. "There is no point
in setting up an obstructive standards group."
O'Toole also accused Microsoft of rigging the vote weeks before the meeting
was held. "It
should be called the Microsoft Open Cartel," he said. "It's a blatant piece
of Microsoft marketing
and an abuse of the word open."
Chris Stone, chairman of the Open Management Group, agrees with O'Toole.
"I have also heard that the Open Group was a done deal three weeks ago," he
said. "Microsoft
are trying to make it appear that they are good boys and playing the
standards game, but all they
are trying to do is port DCOM to some new platforms."
However, there have been some further repercussions since the meeting. "We
have a
branding relationship with the Open Group," said the OMG's Lydia Bennett.
"They were
supposed to be testing the OMG's Common Object Request Broker through
X/open, but we will
have to think again following these events."
Some vendors are also concerned about Microsoft's registration of the
domain name
Active-X2-DOM, as it indicates that Microsoft has another version of
ActiveX in the works.
"That is exactly what they did with OLE," said Stone. "As soon as everybody
had ported
CORBA to OLE, Microsoft brought out OLE 2."
"There will probably be a version 2, but ActiveX will evolve as a
standard," said Pryke-Smith.
"And any changes will be proposed by the members, and the Open Group will
take a vote, and
Microsoft will just be another member of the Open Group."
--Dole/Kemp 96 ________________________ Like A Ghost Breeze Through The Eucalyptus Trees, Nostalgia's Wake Of Melancholy Reverie Clouds The Shitty Past With Tear-Jerking Slop About A Time When Mediocrity And Conformity Were Next To Godliness
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