Alfresco Software Thursday said it has added support for SharePoint Server 2007 protocols to its Alfresco Labs 3 beta and created an open source clone of Microsoft's content management platform.

This whole cloud-computer effort makes sense for Google to pursue, if it hasn't already grown its own cloud OS in secret. Google already has server-based versions of Google Docs, which duplicate the functions of Microsoft's Office software. However, the Google Apps aren't always as full-featured or heavy-duty as Microsoft's software.

It is important to note that SharePoint only runs on a Microsoft stack and some have speculated that SharePoint is the next operating system from Microsoft. One of the goals of the survey was to examine the influence of SharePoint and the Microsoft stack on the open source community.

Microsoft fails to slow Google down; Google harms Microsoft's profits; Windows-only Microsoft Web rationalises temporary support of Google

Although Microsoft publicly testifies from every available pulpit of their deep longing for multiple document formats, a quick glance at reality shows that this love remains unrequited in their products. For example, what new formats does Office 2007 include out of the box?

"Microsoft is trying to push new file formats that are using ZIP and XML. Are those new file formats any good for Office developers ? In other words, should anyone feel safe to make direct access to file parts, and start getting free of running instances of Microsoft Office and its COM object model, usually through VBA ?"

The quotes above are slightly alarming, but the first one is from 2007, whereas the second is from 2006. For actual information about “the fate of Microsoft”, see this recent roundup. In any event, the purpose of this post is to show you how utterly sick the patent system has become. It doesn’t relate to Microsoft or Novell directly.

Microsoft Office SharePoint gets a little lift from Novell's Access Manager 3.1

I assisted a company today with a spectacular Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS) crash. The experience showed some folly in the oft-claimed mantra that Windows-based applications are graphical and friendly. In fact, here’s a free Linux-friendly open source package called Afresco which makes a better SharePoint than SharePoint.