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Microsoft Spokesman Says ODF "Clearly Won" Standard War
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Jun 20, 2008 08:36 AM
from the it's-just-better dept.
from the it's-just-better dept.
Elektroschock writes "At a Red Hat retrospective panel on the ODF vs. OOXML struggle panel, a Microsoft representative, Stuart McKee, admitted that ODF had 'clearly won.' The Redmond company is going to add native support of ODF 1.1 with its Office 2007 service pack 2. Its yet unpublished format ISO OOXML will not be supported before the release of the next Office generation. Whether or not OOXML ever gets published is an open question after four national bodies appealed the ISO decision."
Related Stories
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Microsoft Office 2007 to Support ODF - But Not OOXML 377 comments
Andy Updegrove writes "About two hours ago, Microsoft announced that it will update Office 2007 to natively support ODF 1.1, but not to implement its own OOXML format. Not until Office 14 is released (no date given so far for that) will anyone be able to buy an OOXML ISO-compliant version. Why will Microsoft do this after so many years of refusal? Perhaps because the only way it can deliver a product to government customers that meets an ISO/IEC document format standard is by finally taking the plunge, and supporting 'that other format.' Still, many questions remain, such as when this upgrade will actually be released, how good a job it will do, and whether the API Microsoft has said it will make available to permit developers to supply 'save to ODF' default plugins will be supported by a patent non-assertion promise allowing implementations under the GPL (the upgrade supplied by Microsoft will not allow ODF as the default setting)."
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ISO Puts OOXML On Hold 138 comments
schliz alerts us that ISO, in response to the four appeals (Venezuela, India, Brazil, South Africa) filed in recent weeks, has put the OOXML standardization process on hold. Here is ISO's press release, which says that ISO/IEC DIS 29500 will not be published for at least "several months" while the appeals process goes forward.
Update: 06/11 10:13 GMT by KD : Reader Alsee points out that the fourth officially recognized appealing country is Venezuela, not Denmark as originally stated. The protests of Denmark and Norway are being disregarded, as they do not come from the administrative heads of their national organizations.
Update: 06/11 10:13 GMT by KD : Reader Alsee points out that the fourth officially recognized appealing country is Venezuela, not Denmark as originally stated. The protests of Denmark and Norway are being disregarded, as they do not come from the administrative heads of their national organizations.
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The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, no, this is not the end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft. I guarantee that ODF will not be the default format and that Microsoft's implementation of ODF will clearly be some variation of 'embrace, extend, extinguish,' just like everything else they do.
Still, it feels good to hear a Microsoft employee admit that OOXML lost.
Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Interesting)
Im not against Microsoft (or any software developer) having their own format, even if its the default format, however, I think that 1) ODF should be left alone (no EEE) if added to a Microsoft product, and 2) that they supply a converter (as lossless as possible) that can convert both ways, from ODF, and to ODF.
Likewise, im glad to hear them admit it, but not as glad as I would be to hear that they are dropping OOXML.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, sure but this isn't just any software developer. Word format documents probably hold 80% of the world's knowledge. Including tons of publicly funded stuff - eg laws, research, etc.
So its important that this stuff be readable in the future and able to be shared.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Word format documents probably hold 80% of the world's knowledge.
You have got to be kidding. I don't pretend to know what percentage of the world's knowledge is in .doc format, but I'd be amazed if you weren't at least an order of magnitude out.
Just think of all the knowledge that is in text fields in databases, on web sites in HTML, in PDFs (extremely popular especially online, even MS offer documents in PDF), and of course *printed out on paper*.
80% of the world's knowledge in .doc? Rubbish.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
Word format documents probably hold 80% of the world's knowledge.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
your getting ahead of yourself. First it is Embrace.
What is MSFT doing right now? Embracing ODF, next comes a slow extension of ODF to make it MSFT only.
1) Embrace --- MSFT is doing this part now
2) Extend -- wait about a year for this to start happening
3) Extinguish --- OOXML rulez. in about 2010 or when the next version of Office Ships.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)
An alternative step #3 may yet be possible (bear with my mild optimism - it is Friday, after all):
#3: Quietly give up on OOXML but claim to have invented ODF, just like they created DHCP.
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How to Stop Extend Embrace Extingish ? (Score:5, Informative)
- Create open standard that is copyrighted and trademarked
- Create free test suite for open standard
- Predicate free-gratis license to distribute on passing test suite
- Profit! and compatibility all around
For what it's worth, I think this should be used with html, ecmascript, and css. You should only be ALLOWED to implement those standards if you can agree to follow those standards. The Open Group does with UNIX and the Single Unix Specification, but ofcourse, they charge exorbitant fees.Parent
Re:How to Stop Extend Embrace Extingish ? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a way around this.
IE6 was horrible, slow, insecure, and rendered HTML poorly.
Once Firefox got good enough for general consumption, many web developers stopped putting up with IE, and coded their sites to be mostly-standards compliant.
Users switched to Firefox to gain access to the cutting edge features, and found that it was easy to use, offered a few simple innovative features (tabs), and to be an overall improvement over IE.
In response, IE7 was vastly improved, and is seen as being reasonably on-par with Firefox in terms of supporting the "important" standards properly. There's still a ton of room for improvement, but the days of designing sites specifically around IE are over. The EEE cycle was broken.
Office, on the other hand, has the distinction of actually being better than anything else out there. Its decently fast, offers the features that people care about, and has an interface that most find familiar and easy to use (once they got used to it, people also quite liked the 2007 interface).
OOo, on the other hand stinks. Its slow, ugly, not terribly easy to use, and offers virtually nothing in the way of improvements or new & useful features. It's not quite as bad as early versions of The GIMP, but isn't much better. Apart from the price, there's very little reason for users to switch.
Apple's iWork does do many of these things, but isn't a fantastic candidate due to its platform dependence. Cost is also an issue, though at a fraction of the cost of Office, it remains fairly competitive.
Make an office suite that can legitimately compete with Microsoft, and the EEE cycle will have break in order for Microsoft to maintain their market share. It doesn't have to be Oo.o, and I honestly doubt that they will ever turn out a product that can compete with Microsoft. That doesn't mean that others can't, however!
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Wish i could see what you see.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)
The keystrokes for common actions used to be short, and for infrequent actions used to be longer -- a standard UI design principle. But in Word 2007?
"Edit | Paste Special" used to be "<alt>ES"; now it's "<alt>HVS" ("V"??? Where did that come from?). "Edit | Find" used to be "<alt>EF", now it's <alt>FDF. "File | Properties" used to be "<alt>FI", now (for all but a couple that I don't use) it's "<alt>FEP"[click "document properties"][click "advanced properties..."]. I can't find any way to get there without the mouse, and I can't find any way to get rid of the properties ribbon without using the mouse, and I don't see the point of needing the two mouse clicks because "advanced properties..." is the only entry under "document properties".
On the other hand, changing the number of columns (which I would always do in a new document template, maybe once every couple of years) is just "<alt>PJ" -- really convenient.
The whole interface is geared to the beginner, who is mousing all over the place. Power users, who usually like to keep their hands on the keyboard, have been abandoned.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if you only want to cite personal anecdotal evidence, I'll counter your argument by stating that I quite like it.
Commonly used functions have been moved to the toolbar, rather than buried in menus. The toolbars are also based around more of a task-oriented approach, which better suits the habits and mindset of most users. (The contents of the Format -> Cell window in Excel being the most egregious example).
Most people have never even heard of the functions you described, let alone learned their keystrokes. Those features aren't terribly high up on Microsoft's list of priorities. If you took the time to learn the keyboard shortcut to the obscure document properties dialog, odds are that you're perfectly capable of learning the new ones, or to assign a custom keystroke with the old combination (virtually everything in office can be assigned a custom keystroke).
I hate to say it, but users like yourself make up an infinitesimally small fraction of total users. A company needs to market/design their products for the masses, not the outliers.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with most of your post.
After repeatedly trying OOO, saying "this sucks" and going back to word, I can't agree with you that it stinks.
As of the recent release, I not only finally successfully transfered to it, but within a month, I was suffering in Word because it was illogical and missing features I'd gotten used to (that quickly) in open office.
I think the most recent word (which will be forced down my throat at work shortly) gave up some backwards compatability of interface and addressed some of those illogical areas (Why do I go to the File menu to FORMAT my page/margins???).
The OOo method for formatting pictures ("real-time preview of what your formatting is doing) is superior to the "try a blind stab until you get it right.. not really integrated formatting) in word.
Plus, Office has no equivalent for Draw which as an old Coreldraw hound, I love (it's still primative and can't paste objects on a curve but I'm sure that will be addressed).
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
however, I think that 1) ODF should be left alone (no EEE)
Hey, I'm using OpenOffice on my Eee PC right now, you insensitive clod!
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it doesn't mean that Microsoft will make ODF the default format. It does mean, however, that I could send an Office 2007 user an ODF document that I made with OpenOffice.org and they would be able to open it. They, in turn, could save their file as ODF and send it over to me if I ask for all documents to be sent in ODF format. This represents a serious hole in the "must send everything DOC to ensure compatibility"* lock-in.
* Yes, I know that DOC had troubles across Office versions, but still sending DOC was your best bet if you wanted the party at the other end to be able to open and edit the document you were sending.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
And render correctly, just like if you created a W3C-compliant HTML 4 document with a W3C-compliant CSS style sheet that displays correctly in every other browser other than IE, right?
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I know that DOC had troubles across Office versions, but still sending DOC was your best bet if you wanted the party at the other end to be able to open and edit the document you were sending.
Your statement, taken as a whole is correct. I just don't believe the last part "and edit the document you were sending" comes up very often. I can't think of one time I've been sent a document that someone wanted me to edit during the whole 18 years I've had internet access. 99.99% of the time I get documents someone wants me to review, but not edit in any way. In those cases I'd much rather get a PDF.
If it's a collaborative editing situation, I'd rather use something like Google docs (and have).
The bigger deal for a single document format is really just archival purposes. I want to be able to save a document today, and open the same document in 10 years with totally different software, on a completely different OS and computer. You're not really even guaranteed of doing that TODAY with .doc.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:4, Interesting)
For some of us, it comes up quite often. As tools get better and more people are online with easy networking, I think collaboration on documents will also become more common and choice of tools to use with a real, open standard becomes more important as well.
Usually I agree (although .doc is better if I'm mining it for data the user didn't know they sent). For the average person, however, this may be a different story for a number of reasons. First, the most popular PDF reader (Adobe's) is horribly slow and bloated in tis default configuration and most users don't know of better option or how to use it. Most users are not even capable of copying and pasting text from it into something else. Combine this with PDFs on the Web using IE+WinXP+Adobe's plugin and you have a terrible experience for the average person reading PDFs from the Web. This leads a lot of people to avoid the format altogether and .doc is the next closest thing the average person has seen for communications of that sort.
Google docs is fairly new and is still a bit lacking in features for many people. It is also not really an option for a lot of internal communications in a work environment. I do think collaborative editing will move to ODF unless MS manages to upset things.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, in the session McKee said it will have an option to make ODF the default format. You just have to tell it to.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
So, it can be the default, it's just not the default for it to be the default?
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Funny)
And we know Office will render/produce ODF just as well as IE 6 renders standards compliant HTML.
The ODF version of this comment is best opened with Microsoft Office 2007 or higher.
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Re:The end of vendor lock-in for Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.betanews.com/article/Next_Office_2007_service_pack_will_include_ODF_PDF_support_options/1211343807 [betanews.com]
There will be an option in both the installer and options menu to choose ODF as the default format, if you want.
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In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Ice-capades grand opening in hell marred by dive-bombing pigs.
That's It???! (Score:4, Insightful)
So after all of the time and money and arm twisting MS engaged in because they had to have THE open standard, they're just going to say 'Oh well, ODF was better anyway'?
Re:That's It???! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, yes. But that's just what they say in public. In private they're probably saying, "oh shit, we were way too obvious and public about our criminal behavior and the EU looks ready to stomp on us hard for this one. Maybe if we pretend to roll over and pretend to support ODF for a while, the EU will not make this a priority and use the courts to force us to play nice, with real consequences and oversight. At least if we look like we're willing to be open, we can subtly break compatibility with others and try to extend it with proprietary DRM or something. Really anything that stops us from being declared to have monopoly influence in the office suite market and doesn't make us compete purely on our software's merits is workable."
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Re:That's It???! (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the lengths they went to, first to fight the very notion of an open standard format, and then to push OOXML, it seems hard to believe that this is over.
I'm as happy as anyone else if it is, but it's very unlike MS. To my knowledge, this has happened only once before, with HTML, and we're still paying for the fallout of that one.
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Re:That's It???! (Score:5, Funny)
"The cake is a lie."
"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."
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Re:That's It???! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:That's It???! (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing graceful about this. We know the history here; embrace... extend... extinguish.
I guarantee you that within five years, Microsoft will have its own variant version of ODF with unpublished extensions which will force guys like OO.org and KOffice to once again reverse engineer to maintain compatibility.
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Re:That's It???! (Score:4, Insightful)
ODF documents should be checkable, and compliant applications should have the opportunity to flag errors on the format.
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Wait and See (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we shall all have to wait and see if MS plays nice with ODF because they are scared of the EU, or if they try to extend and break the standard to prevent true interoperability, as they have done with HTML, CSS, etc. since being late to the Web standards game.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, this is the "embrace"-part... (Score:5, Insightful)
... wait for the next phase!
Re:Ok, this is the "embrace"-part... (Score:4, Funny)
*cry*
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Consumer vs Professional (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is whether Microsoft is going to really support ODF or just give lip-service token support. For example, how fast are bugs in the ODF support going to be fixed? Remember how Micorsoft "supported" Java with their non-compliant, buggy implementation?
Re:Consumer vs Professional (Score:4, Informative)
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Can we not see straight even here??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting that anyone should choose to phrase it that way, since it was already an open question (ISO had missed the deadline, by a lot, with no explanation, and no announcement as to when the standard could be expected) before the appeal, probably because it was and is such a massive mess that they were overwhelmed by the task.
Let's not get too excited! (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, this is the first shoe to drop. (Sorry British Columbia, no offense)
The is the "embrace" part. Once they start using the format, just you watch, like Java, HTML, CSS, SQL, C++, C, etc. they will add features that break compatibility, because of, wait for it, "customer demand." As we all know "customer demand" will be asking a room full of carefully collected idiots a set of loaded questions.
I have worked closely, in the past, with Microsoft and they view any real standard as a threat. They wield their monopoly power and "defaco" status like a sledge hammer. They've done it in the past, and they'll do it with ODF.
The computing community has to monitor the situation and fight incompatibility as the run of the mill consumer has absolutely no idea what is going on.
I was in this session... (Score:5, Informative)
And in fact asked the question "Is this just Microsoft doing the first stage of embrace, extend, extinguish?" I was not happy with his response. He floated the idea of merging the two standards, which really concerns me, and also seemed to acknowledge that there was going to be some extension.
From the impression I got, we got thrown a bone, and ODF and OOXML are going to be merged in the next couple of years, and MS will have de facto control because OOXML allows for proprietary extensions.
MS is not going to take this lying down.
I did shake Stuart's hand afterwards, however. He deserves props for showing up and taking a little abuse, although I was not near as hard on him as I would have liked to be, just because other people also deserved a chance to ask questions.
One thing that struck me is that one of the Singapore standards guys was there, and he was NOT happy. He was pretty pissed off that they could not provide even one reference implementation.
But... like I said. Props for showing up, MS. Now you just have many years of monopolistic behavior to live down, and I'll never trust anything you say again.
Perhaps Microsoft is disorganized (Score:4, Insightful)
It certainly is a mystery why Microsoft would spend all the money and accept all the bad publicity with their effort to bribe everyone in the world to mark MSWordXML as a standard, and then just drop it right after they "won". With one press release they have killed their format dead, and thus they have cancelled every bit of the bribes, FUD, and the expense of a chunk of their remaining karma, so that they have lost everything.
Why the hell do all that work to end up in exactly same position they would be if they had just accepted ODF?
I don't think it's possible this is some nefarious complex scheme by Microsoft. It seems to indicate that this giant organization is losing control of itself. Somehow the FUD & bribery machine was started up, and probably immediately some engineers there started saying "whoa! whoa! It's not necessary!" and they were unable to stop the machine, which has it's own enormous momentum, until millions are spent and the company loses a good chunk of it's remaining karma.
ODF Compatibility test utility (Score:5, Interesting)
We are in a very important phase. We (someone) needs to create an ODF compatibility test utility, like an HTML validator, that will test the compliance of an ODF file.
It can be used to catch Microsoft's crap. Remember, a word processing document is unlike HTML. HTML is likely to be seen by a multitude of people where as a document is probably only going to be seen by a specifically targeted group. Microsoft will be able to add incompatibility and almost no one will be able to notice until they wish to open THEIR document with a non-microsoft word processor or spread sheet. At that point it will be too late.
We also have to make sure that Microsoft's products render ODF compliant documents correctly when they are created by non microsoft applications.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Re:ODF Compatibility test utility (Score:5, Insightful)
a). A Reference implementation conforming 100% to ODF 1.1 . Open source, freely reusable.
b). Requirement for any conforming implementation which wishes to be known as ISO ODF to be certified to pass a standard test suite.
c). Any "extensions" introduced after MS does the "embrace" to be by some standard mechanism which enables other implementations to quickly adapt to it.
Since (c) is practically a given where MS is concerned I'm most worried about that one.
Andy
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Re:ODF Compatibility test utility (Score:5, Informative)
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standard business tactics (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, they will support ODF. It's too big a thing to ignore.
Also of course, their implementation will have a few... quirks. You know, implementation bugs that happen symmetrical on both import and export, so they never show up to you, as long as you stay within the MS world. Meanwhile, everything someone with a different ODF implementation sends you will show up buggy, and everything you send them will not quite properly work.
Details, of course. Like footnotes misaligned, or small formation differences. Just enough that nobody calls it bugs, just "quirks", but enough to make sure nobody within a corporation, for example, uses something different.
Microsoft is not stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
Just possibly, Microsoft is sincere about supporting ODF.
Microsoft cannot possibly be ignoring Apple, Google, the EU, the emergence in the last year of mainstream desktop linux and the $400 laptop, the OLPC, the mixed press that accompanied Vista and Office 2007, the bad press received by Windows mobile and the Zune, etc. It is a company that will go through major changes in the next few years. Ballmer is the boss, but probably not for long. Ray Ozzie is CTO and he and a host of managers below him will ultimately be rewarded for figuring out how to succeed in this new world where Microsoft has lost a lot of its market dominance and even more of its mindshare.
If I were at Microsoft I'd be figuring that hardcore corporate MS shops are going to stay MS shops for the forseeable future whether I support ODF or not (they've probably built their business around Exchange server). The fringe --- governments, small business, K-12 schools, universities --- are gone in the next two years unless I start to interoperate in a serious way. So I would support ODF, and I would do it sincerely, and I would figure that by doing so I'd be holding on to some of my customers in the short run. In the long run, well, everything is up for grabs. I'd be better be doing some heavy R&D in the hopes of competing with Apple, Google, and the linux community.
Possibly the real deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm as jaded about MS as the next person, and always watch carefully where their interests lie before trying to second guess them.
This time, I think they may be serious about full ODF support. Without the 'extend' section.
The reason I think this is that they're no longer pitching to a set of businesses that can do what the hell they feel like, and ignore the rest of the world.
They're now having to play ball with governments. And many governments have been bitten by the 'changing of the format' game in word, where they can't read older documents anymore, thus the rising insistence on being able to reliably and moreover accurately save in a known, documented open way that anyone in 50 years time will be able to build a reader for from the well documented specification if there isn't one available.
If they're to sell to government (a lot of money is at stake here; they need to at least be in the market. If a government can't buy word, quite a few businesses would invest in alternate word processor software to maintain compliance with government and ensure they can pass documents around reliably), they have to abide by the full letter of the spec, and not break it. Governments can be quite uppity when you take liberties with their internal workings.
That doesn't mean that ODF will supplant OOXML in all places though, as I daresay there are things that can be saved in that format that ODF doesn't support. They're just few and far between. But you can guarantee the suits in the businesses will just hear the "Our format does more", and "You can easily make prettier presentations with our software", and the MS suite will still be sold.
They'll still have lock in to a level with business (who are far more prone to using the 'shiny' parts of software that are just toys, but require the 'extended format' of OOXML), plus the momentum they have there isn't going to go away anytime soon (IT departments not wanting to support more than one vendor of software for cost reasons).
For purely monetary reasons, I can see the benefit in them toeing the line on a standard. Which is why I think they'll do it and leave it alone (and then use the standard smoke and mirrors to try and get everyone, apart from Governments who insist on it, to completely ignore it).
I use both OOO and Office 2007, and honestly, getting full ODF compliance in Word would only make me more likely to use it more often (I currently only use it when I want to make some pretty things very quickly; all the real work is done in OOO).
Re:yay (Score:4, Funny)
You obviously used OOXML to post your comment.
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