Mass. warms to Microsoft Office standard

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Network effect

If a change in document formats is associated with a valuable increase in functionality, then I would want those formats changed as quickly and often as appropriate.

I doubt that, but hold the thought.

In most cases a document format that only you can access is much less useful than one with (perhaps) fewer features that is available to a wider group.

That's the reason for (for instance) memory standards: they allow a system builder to have a choice between processors, memory controllers, DRAM, etc. The availability of alternatives makes a standard part more valuable than a non-standard part that might have slightly better performance.

A good example is low-latency DRAM. Unquestionably better performance. It's even supported by multiple vendors. Alas, it's not universally supported so it's not used as often and because it's not used as often it's more expensive and ... Anyway, you're almost certainly not using it right now despite the better performance.

ODF deos everything that Microsoft claims for its format, and it's here today with multiple vendors. For plumbing enterprise systems it makes sense -- it has the feature set required, feqtures it lacks can be added as and when they're identified, it's widely supported, etc.

As for implementing changes immediately, keep in mind that you're going to have to revalidate (at the minimum) and possibly replace third-party applications that depend on that format. That can get extremely expensive. You're going to need a compelling reason to do so.

Posted by: Yagotta B. Kidding   Posted on: 11/28/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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