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Re: ODF Quandary Reveals Hypocrisy

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> A view of ODF from the other side
>
> ,----[ Quote of a quote ]
> |     ODF has a place and presents Microsoft with a dilemma. Since there is
> | no decent plug-in to support ODF documents in MS Office, some users will
> | find it necessary to download a free Office suite like OpenOffice.org just
> | so they can open and save ODF documents.

That's the whole point.  I can download OO and be able to read and
write ODF documents, Word documents, Excel Documents, and Powerpoint
documents, and I can create PDF documents.

Not bad for a 30 minute download and a $25 donation.


> |     Microsoft really doesn't want people trying OpenOffice or other
> | rivals, customers might start wondering why they are paying Microsoft
> | for functionality they can get elsewhere for much less or nothing.

The bigger problem for Microsoft is that many companies will opt not to
upgrade.  Many companies haven't upgraded since Office 97, there are
even some on Office 95.

Mac was better than Windows, but Windows was "good enough".  Open
Office may not be quite as good as MS-Office in some ways, but it's
"good enough" and provides many very desirable features not available
in MS-Office.

> |     Microsoft should swallow their corporate pride and provide
> | in-built support for ODF, much in the same way that Office has opened
> | and saved WordPerfect and Rich Text format documents for many years.

Bad example.  Microsoft "adopted WordPerfect" and the save-as turned
the documents which were previously readable into something like
postage stamps when opened with real Word Perfect.  It got very amusing
when court documents were transformed into unreadable garbage.

> |     ODF support in MS Office would benefit Microsoft customers and reduce
> | the risk of them 'straying' out of necessity. Microsoft argues that ODF
> | isn't widely accepted and their Office XML formats are better--but that
> | didn't stop them supporting the WordPerfect format when it suited them.

This is amusing.  ODF is pretty much becoming ubiquitous.  Again, all
that's required is a 30 minute download.  Then you can burn a CD-ROM or
DVD-R and pass it around to all your friends - and it's all legal.
There have been about 100 million downloads, I don't think anyone knows
how many deployments.  After all, OO doesn't have that nice "tell me
everything without telling the user" feature that was built into
MS-Office.

> |     If Microsoft chooses not to support ODF in their Office products
> | they will conspicuously not be able to work with an ISO standard.
> `----

I think it's Microsoft that's trying to get the ISO to adopt (not
so)OpenXML as a formal standard.  The problem is that Microsoft is
notorious for adding proprietary extensions.

>                 http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/1569


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