'ODF has clearly won,' says Microsoft exec
But that doesn't mean it's giving up on OOXML
THE ISO APPROVED Open Document Format (ODF) standard has gained ground during Microsoft's campaign for its competing Office Open XML (OOXML) specification, a senior Vole executive admitted in a panel session about the long running ISO standards struggle over OOXML at the Red Hat Summit in Boston on Thursday.
Stuart McKee, Microsoft's national technology officer, stated that "ODF has clearly won," acknowledging that the monopolist will start supporting ODF natively in Microsoft Office next year. He also sounded almost apologetic about not supporting ODF sooner, saying "We couldn't [implement ODF] during the release of Office 2007. We're looking forward and committed to doing more than translators."
However, open documents standards proponents shouldn't get their hopes up that Microsoft plans to abandon OOXML in favour of ODF anytime soon.
The Vole will also take a role on the technical committee in charge of evolving ODF, McKee noted, but he didn't think it would work to merge the two standards. He said, "I don't think we're going to see a situation where we have single unifying standards."
He made the argument that different format standards aimed at different purposes can and do coexist, citing as examples the digital image standards JPEG for simple images and TIFF for high-resolution images.
Though he didn't go so far as to say so, it seems clear that Microsoft will attempt to limit and denigrate ODF as a consumer oriented document standard while trying to promote its OOXML as more appropriate for professional use, keeping users on its upgrade treadmill.
Fellow panelist Venky Hariharan, Red Hat-India director of corporate affairs, disagreed with McKee. "To have two standards for the same purpose defeats the idea [of establishing standards]. Multiple standards for the same application, in my opinion, is a bad thing.... We should collaborate on developing standards and compete on their implementation," he said.
But of course a level playing field for competition is the last thing Microsoft really wants. µ
L'Inq
Infoworld
Comments
piece of trash article
classic fud by a ODF-supporter.Why don't you go make something more valuable in your life?
Ok Vole,...
You can play football in pads and helmet, if you insist. But all your goals are belong to us, and no carrying the ball. This is not hand ball, and we will yellow card your passing tiffs. However, if you barneys an obstruction it will be Red Card for Redmond.Poor Georgey
Wow, George - that is some pretty insightful comment there. Now go back to your room, play-time is over, and don't get back on the computer without permission from your mommy."piece of trash article
classic fud by a ODF-supporter.
Why don't you go make something more valuable in your life?
posted by : george, 20 June 2008 "
choice
Georgey likes to be held to ransom by a monopolistic single supplier.He likes to pay over the odds and forced into a corner about how to manage his documents and software.
He likes to be screwed down by activations, license keys and he likes to have someone else decide what he should and shouldn't be able to do and how much it should cost him
He probably likes the RIAA as well
He obviously doesn't like ODF.
Are people buying MS office any more?
www.openoffice.org - free office suite with work-like writer, excel-like spreadsheet, powerpoint-like etc, you get the message.Openoffice looks and feels like Office, the toolbars are the same, etc.
Openoffice is free and it works on almost anything. windows, linux, probably even a mac!
You can open and save as MS Office file types, it's fully compatible.
Why pay for MS Office when some techs will make one almost the same for free?
hmm
This article is drenched in so much hatred towards MS that it puts Charlie Demerijan in shame. He's usually the one to go over the top with over-exaggerated venom.Embrace, extend and extinguish
Now that OOXML is definately history as an ISO standard, Microsoft will change their tactics to the well-known embrace, extend and extinguish (EEE) method. Microsoft must not be allowed to destroy the ODF standard. Be afraid, be very afraid.Read more about EEE here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish
And yet no one sees it coming...
First...>>>Openoffice looks and feels like Office, the toolbars are the same, etc
Dude, what basement you been locked in? If you even try to argue that OpenOffice has the polish of Office97, let alone Office 2007, you need medication.
(You also realize there are more security holes and stabilities issues with OpenOffice, and the stabilitiy issues are why businesss is going, "Ya we will pass for now."
Anyway, back to my topic...
The way ODF is designed, it doesn't have standards set for many features included in Office Document formats, from Ink and contextual linking, to tons of crap mose OpenOffice and ODF people don't even get.
So this means Microsoft will create these 'additions' to ODF, just as the specification allows. And ODF will be basic ODF with Microsoft standardized features tacked on.
The only thing ODF wins is the basic RTF and container format standards. PERIOD.
ODF for the rest of the world that deals with saving INK and OCRed images and 'recognized' voice in documents (like MS OOXML does inherently), will be using the same Microsoft designed extensions to ODF to support these features.
So what did ODF win? Oh ya, nothing sadly...