Office + OpenDocument, Never Say Never

barryfreed writes "There's a blog entry by Andy Updegrove at ConsortiumInfo.org that says Microsoft has officially stated to him that support of OpenDocument in MS Office could happen. Microsoft sent the statement in a response to an article Updegrove wrote called Massachusetts and OpenDocument: A Brave New World?"

Comments

Re:Never happen

[Iriel]

I think Microsoft could actually take OpenDocument support in one of two directions:

1. Basically, how you put it. They would only support it enough so that it would be that extra bullet point at the bottom of the feature list "(blah blah, marketing drivel)...now with OpenDocument support!"

2. (Please don't correct me with a torch, I'm not an expert on this topic) but I don't doubt that MS would find some tiny loophole to sneak their own proprietary crap into OpenDocument formatted Office files which would have an adverse effect upon openning in any non-office program. I just wouldn't be surprised when I've seen two identical machines with identical software on the same network transfer a Word file from one computer to come out garbled on the other end.

No brainer

[jmorris42]

They will refuse to support OpenDocument just as long as there is a chance they can browbeat customers lime MA into sticking with Office. Then they will refuse to support it while they make all of their plans to switch to something else. Finally at the last minute they will offer to allow them to be a 'beta' site for their upcoming OpenDocument supporting version. Since the grunts at the keyboards hate change, tons of political pressure will be put on the people in charge to stick with MS, this offer will be accepted. Then after a couple of years of buggy and disfunctional betas we will get to the final decision. If others also demand OpenDocument it will finally go production. Otherwise they will just pull the plug on it, the current IT team in MA will have been quietly replaced by then and the whole thing will be forgotten.... except by anyone else who is thinking of taking a similar stand.

Re:Never happen

[saider]

2. (Please don't correct me with a torch, I'm not an expert on this topic) but I don't doubt that MS would find some tiny loophole to sneak their own proprietary crap into OpenDocument formatted Office files which would have an adverse effect upon openning in any non-office program.

All they have to do is put the little balloon that says that "saving to OpenDocument may cause loss of formatting", which will cause 95% of the people out there to save to the proprietary file type.

CSV

[3ryon]

I suspect that MS support will be like that in Excel with CSV files. I choose "Save As", hit the drop down, scroll through the list for .csv, select that, hit save.

I then get a dialog box saying something like "This file may contain features that cannot be saved if you continue to save in this format. Are you sure you want to save in this format?" Well, yes. I scrolled through the list and picked that format.

This behavior occurs even if you open a .csv file, change one value and resave it...not using any fancy features.