Excel is a proprietary, secret format specific to a given software, a given vendor, a given operating system.
It's exactly the point of my mail. Please READ IT.

Professional companies (as Nortel, AT&T, Cisco, Google, Sun Microsystems, ...) only use standard formats. Excel IS NOT A STANDARD FORMAT.

I don't use neither Microsoft operating systems, neither Ms-Office suite. I have no reasons to switch from a modern efficient software suite that respects the published ISO standards (as ASCII, OpenDocument, HTML, CSV, ...) to fall into an expensive, unsafe and inefficient system as Ms-Office on Windows just to be able to read your mails. Exchanging informations requires a common standard, and MS-Office file format is not standardised, neither even published, and consequently not interoperable.

I can't do anything with a Ms-Office Excel file, exactly as you probably couldn't do anything if I sent you an AutoCAD 2008 file.

Norna Cash a écrit :
Here is an Excel version.  Please let me know if you have any issues with it.
 
Regards,
Norna Cash
Google
650-214-2576

2008/11/5 Brent Frere <brf@plan-net.lu>
I received you mail, but unfortunately, I can't open the attachement, as it is in proprietary secret format.
Please use stadardised, published, interoperable, portable formats as OpenDocument, PDF, HTML, CSV or even ASCII if you want to be read.

I advice you OpenOffice as free and portable tool to produce those various formats. It is downloadable for almost any platform from http://www.openoffice.org
If you are using Ms-Office, the Office2007 SP2 provides an export function in the interoperable, standardised format OpenDocument.

For older releases, Sun Microsystems provides gratis a plugin that allows also exportations in this format.

Here are some links to articles to explain my position.
Google to Support OpenDocument
http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html
http://en.nothingisreal.com/wiki/Please_don%27t_send_me_Microsoft_Word_documents
http://www.rfc1149.net/documents/whynotword.html.en
http://www.efn.no/word-nothanks.let

Thank you for re-sending me this document in a readable format.

Norna Cash a écrit :
Mr Frere,
 
Attached please find a statement of account for open items due Google for your email security product.  Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you need any further information to expedite payment on the amounts due.
 
Best regards,
Norna Cash
Google
650-214-2576

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <postini-collections@google.com>
Date: Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 1:23 PM
Subject: Postini Transaction Report for Plan-Net s.a.
To:
Cc: ncash@postini.com


Attention Accounts Payable:

Please find attached your Postini Transaction Report.  If any of these items are past due, please pay them as soon as possible according to the instructions on your most recent invoice. Should you have any questions or require anything else to secure payment, please simply reply to this email with what you need and a representative will assist you.

Kind Regards,
Postini Collections Team
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