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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."
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.
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.
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?
.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?
"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
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.
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).
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