On Thursday 22 May 2008 14:02:21 Ian McDonald wrote:
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 1:34 PM, Bruce Kingsbury <zcat(a)zcat.geek.nz> wrote:
2008/5/22 Ian McDonald <ian.mcdonald(a)jandi.co.nz>:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080521-office-2007-to-gain-native -odf-support-early-next-year.html
As I keep saying I think Microsoft is heading down a more open path. Sure they're not there yet but this is a good move. It wasn't that long ago that Sun was a closed source company (think Solaris, Java).
I'd like to believe it, but so soon after the OOXML fiasco it's pretty hard to swallow. My prediction is that MS Office will support an 'improved ODF' with features 'designed to preserve legacy document formats'.
Time will tell..
I'd rather have OOXML as a standard than not at all.... Microsoft already have to change Office to cater for flaws found in standardisation process - said will be in next service pack.
The only problem is that to be a standard someone has to be using it. At this point in time that is impossible because the final version is unknown, even to Microsoft. ISO 29500 is still a mystery. The month has long since passed since the BRM and the spec has not been released. http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/05/release-ooxml-final-dis-text-now.html MS themselves only support bits of the spec now and won't fully until Office 14... and even that is not a given http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=32228 The service pack is only to extend it's present file handling capability to include among others ODF and PDF/A and nothing to do with OOXML. Sorry, but a bad standard is worse than no standard and even worse when another standard is already in place and even worse when the promoter of the bad standard was in a position to assist in the development of the original but chose not to. With above decision MSO will now support four XML formats MSO'07 XML,(The present version that is not OOXML) MS'03XML, ODF and OOXML. That sounds to me like confusion. The OpenOffice.org Strategic marketing plan of '05 sets the 5 year goal of 50% market penetration by 2010, I'm beginning to wonder if we weren't somewhat pessimistic. Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html INGOTs Moderator New Zealand www.theingots.org.nz GET DRESSED : GET OOOGEAR Gear for the well dressed OOo Advocate www.ooogear.co.nz