ODF Vs. OOXML File Counts On the Web

mrcgran writes "In eight months since Office 2007 was released to the general public (10 months since release to enterprise customers), there are fewer than 2,000 of these office documents posted on the Web. In the last three months, 13,400 more ODF documents have been added to the Web, with only 1,329 OOXML documents added. It would be hard for the Microsoft camp to spin ten times as many ODF documents added as OOXML documents, especially since 34% of those new documents were added on Microsoft.com. That isn't what I would call good traction for Microsoft's overwhelmingly dominant office suite."

Comments

Microsoft is competing with itself

[Shados]

Thats the main issue. I have Office 2007, and had it for a while. I almost always save in normal DOC for people still using Office 2003...

Re:Microsoft is competing with itself

[hairpinred]

I personally have found that when trying to open old DOC format files that OpenOffice.org does a much better job than the latest version of Word does.

Especially if you have any legacy Word 1.0 or 2.0 documents that can't be upgraded to the latest format for contractual reasons - Office 2007 will not open those files correctly, and those files are officially unsupported by Microsoft.

I'm surprised that more people don't just use .ODF, it's a published, open standard that is as trivial to write a parser for as it is to just unzip the file and look at the XML directly...

Re:Microsoft is competing with itself

[Bluesman]

I think this is exactly right, and one of the most interesting aspects of Microsoft's business.

Their whole business is dependent on being the popular standard. But by definition, a standard can't be a moving target, so it has to change very slowly or people will stick with "the old version that everyone has."

This puts Microsoft between a rock and a hard place, since they'll lose the market if they make too drastic a change, and they'll also lose the market if they don't change at all, and allow other implementations to catch up.

It's a high-wire balancing act, and while they're very good at it, they're going to slip eventually.

All of you people worried about Microsoft as a monopoly are freaking out over nothing. In the long term, what they're doing with Windows and Office is not sustainable.

Re:Microsoft is competing with itself

[Volante3192]

Especially if you have any legacy Word 1.0 or 2.0 documents that can't be upgraded to the latest format for contractual reasons

Offtopic, but I'm just too curious... Would it be possible to explain why these can't be migrated to a newer format? I'd think that'd be dangerously unwise.

I'm surprised that more people don't just use .ODF, it's a published, open standard that is as trivial to write a parser for as it is to just unzip the file and look at the XML directly...

Cause we all know how much a success that is; just look at HTML!

Re:Microsoft is competing with itself

[phoenixwade]

Especially if you have any legacy Word 1.0 or 2.0 documents that can't be upgraded to the latest format for contractual reasons
Offtopic, but I'm just too curious... Would it be possible to explain why these can't be migrated to a newer format? I'd think that'd be dangerously unwise. I'm not sure of the parent poster, but we have some electronic documents that are archived from 10 years ago that can't be updated and then re-archived, they must match the printed documents that they produced. We can, and do, convert to a new(er) format when updating a document to be submitted and published now, and to allow those documents to be searched, but the ability to open documents from years ago is critical for one of our customers. We got the job because we were willing to dedicate a system to retrieve those documents in the original format.

My recommendation was to handle those archives very differently. This client has a decision maker who knows what he wants, and dictates that it is either done that way, or he'll find someone else to do it. So we do it that way, and every year, I make a case for becoming more current, and every year, the answer is no. I don't mind, though, he's paying for the service, and other than this little bit of fear, he's really easy to work with, I've certainly had far more progressive clients that were far more of a PITA.

Is a web count really the best metric?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of what I and the various people and businesses I've known use this sort of document format for, is the sort of thing that should never in a million years be put out on the web in the first place. If you can count what formats are clogging up large intranets, meybe you've got a clearer picture.

Yeah, but

[everphilski]

what about the number of .doc files generated in the same timeframe? :)

And...so?

[DragonWriter]

In eight months since Office 2007 was released to the general public (10 months since release to enterprise customers), there are fewer than 2,000 of these office documents posted on the Web.

Probably because most people creating documents with Office 2007 for the web are either:
1) Converting them to PDF or XPS if they aren't meant to be edited, or
2) Converting them to Office 97-2003 format if they are meant to be edited, since the majority of the Microsoft Office-using audience will be using older versions of the office suite.

I don't think counting documents on the web is particularly a useful way to try to measure the dominance of office suites or their associated file formats. Its, perhaps, an easy measure, but not a meaningful one.

Bad metric

[BuR4N]

"That isn't what I would call good traction for Microsoft's overwhelmingly dominant office suite"

Its a worthless metric, how many OOXML have been stored in various internal Sharepoint servers around the world ?

Re:When standards were determined not by.....

[Anonymous Coward]

And I bet its all because its easier to spell.

I tried open office once and it was buggy and crashed a lot. So why should I use the Open Office XML format, when I can use the trusted Office Document Format?

Bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Why exactly is this tagged "linux"? As though magically all thing FOSS revolve around Linux? Because there being more ODF docs out there, is suddenly a win for Linux, instead of a win for Open Office and FOSS in general?

"That isn't what I would call good traction for Microsoft's overwhelmingly dominant office suite."

The fact that it is an "overwhelmingly dominant office suite" is traction enough. Compare how many users are using any other suite, to the amount running Office. And filecount means something now? By this logic, should be now abandon Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and other audio formats because the number of .mp3s out there completely overshadows them? Should be dismiss Linux and OS X as insignificant sheerly on the basis that there are astronomically more Windows boxen out there? But wait, this is different somehow (because the OSS variant has the numerical advantage) less asinine than, oh, I don't know, basing security on the number of known vulnerabilities that we here on Slashdot love to complain about, isn't it?

And this whole "t would be hard for the Microsoft camp to spin ten times as many ODF documents added as OOXML documents" continually searching for, and boasting any little flaw or inconsistency or what-have-you, no matter how insignificant is really both absurd and childish.

Meanwhile...

[Vellmont]

The REAL document format, PDF has millions of documents on the web.

Do I really care what format people pass around documents they intend to edit, as long as they publish them in what's become the standard format for end-users, i.e. pdf?

The problem, as I see it is people are using ODF/.doc/Microsoft-whatever to often for documents that are really supposed to be just electronically published documents. I.e, not intended to be editied (though obviously you can with the right software).

Apple and Oranges

[in10se]

1. Most people using Office 2007 are still saving their documents in XP/2003 format, so don't confuse the use of the format with the use of the software. In addition, Office 2007 has built-in support for PDF which is a better choice of format for the web.
2. You can't expect major corporations OR small businesses to jump formats overnight (and yes, 7 months is "overnight" when you are talking about major software changes).
3. ODF is output by various free software. More people are willing to download, upload, and play with free software. Geeks are more likely to play with free software. Geeks are more likely to upload documents to the web than normal internet users.
4. Word processing documents (in either format) aren't really meant for the web anyway.

All of these things will lower the number of OOXML documents on the web even if the use of Office 2007 is growing. Any opinions of Microsoft, Linux, Office aside, the comparison in TFA means absolutely nothing.

Re:The root problem is that there's a difference.

[Vellmont]

The real problem is that there is still a difference.

The more I think about this idea, the more I disagree with it. I think it's a great thing that there's a separation between "presentation" formats, and formats intended to be edited. Why? Because presentation formats should always be the same, always be readable by an older version of software, etc. Editing formats have different needs, like adding new features like layers, links to other documents, etc.

Look at the photoshop format (psd I think) vs jpg for instance. jpg is a format intended to be published, where psd is a flexible format for a designer to do whatever they please with the photo (seperate layers, all that jazz).

In short, editing formats need to evolve and be extremely flexible (and thus incompatible), presentation formats need to stay the same (to a large degree). That doesn't mean you can't edit a publishing format of course.. people edit jpgs all the time. It's just not the design goal of the format.