Office beta coming in November

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Customers demand ODF: "This just speaks to our commitment for customers to have a choice in what types of open formats they want to work within the Office applications."

First of all, the Microsoft format is not "open" in any meaningful way. It is not compatible with the GPL, which covers 70% of open source software. How convenient...

I also notice that you're not commited to supporting a truly open file format, maintained by an independent open standards organization. Inspite of several large customers like the European Union and the state of Massachusetts saying they want it.

"I certainly wouldn't say it would be fairly easy. In fact it would be a very substantial undertaking."

Funny how KOffice, with much smaller resources, and a more distant document model (frame-based) doesn't seem to have a problem. I also
notice that MS Office doesn't seem to mind supporting WordPerfect which is more distant to the MS Office document model than OpenDocument is.

"Frankly, we've had no demand from our customers for this feature."

So the state of Massachusetts doesn't count as a customer? What about the library system in Birmingham? What about the European Union? What about the city of Munich? What about the National Archives of Australia? What about Boeing?

Are you saying that none of those count as a customer?

"We get over 120,000 requests every month for PDF support from our Office Online Web site"

120,000 requests *per* *month*?!
And *now* you finally decide to support the format? What kind of a company can wait to be bombarded with requests before they listen to
customers? Oh.. right... a monopoly.

"We've always felt that the primary value that we deliver to people is not in the format that the information is stored in but in the tool that's used to create the format."

But you've never had problems locking out competitors by keeping your file formats closed. And in the case of the new XML-ish format (XML with binary data!) you include patent restrictions to forbid your most significant competitor from using it.

"Now, what people are saying is, 'We don't mind change, we like change, but we want it to have very specific value propositions.' "

Funny, I've heard tons of people infuriated by Microsoft changing the file format on every release to force people to upgrade.

Now, on this topic, I would consider that being a truly open format (no patent restrictions, control by an independent organization) is a very important value proposition for me. And for the state of Massachusetts, and for the European Union, and many other large customers.

Are you saying that you'll only add a value proposition if it is one that helps you lock in customers and lock out the competition?

"With Office 12, we really focused on (the fact that) we want to open up the format to developers"

Just not the developers who maintain your most significant competitor... (open source software).

"Adobe publishes the PDF specification as an open standard and encourages developers to implement the output as PDF."

And notice that Adobe doesn't feel the need to add patent restrictions to lock out GPL software.

"...our Open XML standard"

Your format is not "open" (locks out FOSS), it barely qualifies as XML (includes binary data) and surely isn't a standard (isn't supported by any standards group, and is not used by any existing product).

Cheers,
Daniel.; Posted by: danielc_z Posted on: 10/04/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use