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Microsoft Circles the Wagons To Defeat ODF In the UK
Andy Updegrove writes "Three weeks ago, we heard that Francis Maude, a senior UK government minister, was predicting the conversion to open source office suites by UK government agencies. Lost in the translation in many stories was the fact that this was based not on an adopted policy, but on a proposal still open for public comment — and subject to change. It should be no surprise that Microsoft is trying to get the UK to add OOXML, its own format standard, to the UK policy. Why? According to a messaging sent to its UK partners, because it believes that a failure to include OOXML 'will cause problems for citizens and businesses who use office suites which don't support ODF, including many people who do not use a recent version of Microsoft Office or, for example, Pages on iOS and even Google Docs.' Of course, that's because Microsoft pushed OOXML as an alternative to ODF a decade ago. If you don't want the same objection to be valid a decade from now, consider making your views known at the Cabinet Office Standards Hub. The deadline is February 26."
failure to include OOXML 'will cause problems for citizens and businesses who use office suites which don't support ODF, including many people who do not use a recent version of Microsoft Office'
IIRC, OOXML isn't in any version of MS Office that doesn't have ODF support.
If you don't want the same objection to be valid a decade from now, consider making your views known at the Cabinet Office Standards Hub. The deadline is February 26.
The documents are on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign outside the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."
Make sure you bring a torch.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I call bullshit. OpenOffice or LibreOffice can be configured to store files in .doc and .xls and .ppt formats - problem solved! It annoys me there are still people and govts. buying the rubbish arguments spouted by Microsoft and their ilk...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
OpenOffice or LibreOffice can be configured to store files in .doc and .xls and .ppt formats - problem solved!
While true, that doesn't mean either of those products are permitted in every office. A lot of IT departments are notoriously inflexible on this sort of matter. If your organization standardizes on something, odds are they aren't going to want you using some other unapproved product. If you were to point out that this inflexibility is probably dumb, I am inclined to agree with you. Nevertheless it does occur and it is a real problem. Microsoft isn't strictly wrong here though they are being a bit disingenuous regarding some of the nuances of the situation.
I have standardized my company on LibreOffice but its ability to read and write Microsoft Office files is imperfect at best. It's particularly bad at the more recent .docx and .xlsx files. It reads and writes them well enough to be useful most of the time but don't expect perfection.
A citizen wanting to interact with their government should not be compelled to purchase a particular company's product to do so. If I choose to mail in my tax forms, it should not require purchasing Official Government Printing Stock to do it. If I file electronically, it should not be locked in to, say, Turbotax. An open format (ODF, PDF) should be acceptable. This also frankly makes sense financially: if MS is the only company supporting OOXML (arguable, since at last check they don't even meet their own standard), then there's no possibility of price competition. If you're on an *open* format where many vendors can compete, the govt can go for best price and properly spend the money they screw us out of annually.