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Tim Bray on Implications of OpenDocument Format
Jure Cuhalev writes "In todays keynote, at the OpenOffice.org conference, Tim Bray focused on what OpenDocument format means for office suits. He compared the impact that OpenDocument will have on regular documents to kick-off of the web with selection of HTML as file format. You can watch the video or listen to audio track. Also check out the media page for more conference coverage."
He said it would've cost $1000 for MS office per desktop, I couldn't hear how much he said it would've cost per openoffice.
This (friday) morning we just had an encounter with a Microsoft techie, in the Q&A session of the keynote conference about migration to OpenOffice.
Of course, he just kept repeating the standard Microsoft ideas, saying the speaker (!!) seems Anti-American, anti-corporate, saying that the Microsoft DOC format (the new one) IS open for everyone, citing some EU decision on that. This Microsoft guy has also agressively offered to "help the speaker get the facts right" for his slides for next time.
Then, in the corridor, talking with him lead of course nowhere, but what else did you expect? He only could repeat the standart MS panel replies to every question raised...
Neither the audio or video have the complete presentation. Nice. Very nice.
Personally, i find the MS response to the OpenDocument format quite interesting, and I think it is rather short sighted.
MS currently seems to be going through a phase where it is lacking innovation and agility, and is trying to buy these concepts (see for example their aquisition of Groove).
By adopting the OpenDocument format, MS would make it a lot easier for 3rd parties to create applications that interwork easily with MS Office documents, in all sorts of ways that they don't at the moment. For example, MS Equation Editor is a dog, so even though at work I have to use Offie, I do all my equation editing in OpenOffice, because the equation editor is much nicer.
If there is a sea of 3rd party vendors offering applications which extend the functionality of MS Office (by working directly with OpenDocument files), then there is an awful lot of scope for MS to aquire the best of them - and MS has awfully deep pockets.
So is MS missing a trick here?
Best regards,
treefrog
It's going to be an interesting battle between Microsofts 'Open' Document format and the real ODT, I'm sure MS's format uses Open in a very very very loose way...
Open Office is getting stronger and stronger, the new interface looks great, let's hope this persuades more people to use a truly open format.
Share your Knowlege - Kung-Fu Geekery
A little off-topic, but I was wondering about the standardization of OpenDocument. Several OpenOffice.org files have namespaces like "oooc:" in various sections (like formulas) and they are not imported correctly by KOffice. Any pointers to more information about this?
All this oposition from Microsoft is only play for the gallery. Fact is that it would be dead easy for them to wite a filter or plug-in to MS Office that could read or write files in the OpenDocument formats.
... Which of course all current software out there is equally incompatible with as the OpenDocument format.
Such a move would of course also invalidate many of the claims and concerns about replacing software, including the ones voiced from a disabilites point of view.
Of course there will be massive costs in converting documents from older Win-Word formats to OpenDocument, but Microsoft is planning on slapping this cost on businesses and states anyway since they will be changing the default fileformats in Office 12 to MS XML.
The future is in beta
Unlike some posters on this board, I never hated fox news, until now.
1 34232923
FWIW: here is my email:
Subject: Where is the full disclosure on this biased article?
To: Comments@foxnews.com
In regards to your article:
Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
By James Prendergast
Should you not, at the very least, have mentioned that the ATL is a Microsoft funded organization? And that the ATL has been caught in pro-Microsoft "astro-turfing" before?
Aside from that, the article was poorly reasoned, and full of outright lies.
I refer you to the following link:'
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050929
Thank you,
Walter Byrd
An ex-Fox News viewer.