Study Touting OOXML Over ODF Is Debunked

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Tuesday January 15, 2008 @10:53AM from the where-the-bread-is-buttered dept.

The Burton Group, an IT research company, published a study urging that enterprise organizations adapt OOXML rather than ODF. Their reasons include things like "ODF is controlled indirectly by Sun," "MS Office is cheaper than OpenOffice.org," and "OOXML improved many problems of DOC." The Burton Group also claims that although ODF is well-designed, OOXML is better suited for the specific needs of enterprise organizations. The study claims to be impartial in that Microsoft didn't pay for it. Ars Technica now has up a pretty thorough debunking of the Burton study. Ars wonders how the Burton authors can so blithely overlook Microsoft's vote-buying in Sweden, while wielding unfounded accusations of chicanery in Sun's direction.

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Re:must not have been a hard job by harlows_monkeys · 2008-01-15 11:43 · Score: 0, Troll

Sun does control ODF, through patents. Read the patent license Sun gave when they submitted ODF for standardization. It only covers that specific version, plus future versions whose standardization Sun participates significantly in. That means if OASIS starts going in any direction that Sun objects to, Sun can just step away, and their patents stop development in that direction.