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Microsoft Software

MS Office 12 To Utilize ODF? 196

Posted by Zonk from the humble-pie dept.
J. Random Luser writes "Groklaw is carrying a story about Microsoft quietly engaging a French company to develop Open Document filters for Office 12, due out mid-2006. The SourceForge project claims to be an import filter for MS Office, and that is how the developer describes it. But ZDNet quotes Ray Ozzie as talking about an export filter from MS Office, and this french blog takes Ozzie at his word. Ostensibly the tarball unpacks as OpenOfficePlugin, and SourceForge has the WindowsInstaller.msi listed as 'platform independent'." From the ZDNet article: "Ozzie told me that supporting ODF in Office isn't a matter of principle. Microsoft isn't opposed to supporting other formats. The company just announced support for PDF, and he added that the Open Office XML format has an 'extremely liberal' license."
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MS Office 12 To Utilize ODF? More

MS Office 12 To Utilize ODF?

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  • Utilize isn't the same as support (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Reality Master 201 ( 578873 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:38AM (#13895777) Journal
    It's one thing to read/write a document format through a filter.

    It's another to utilize the format, i.e., as the underlying default storage format.
    • Yeah, but assuming it's not crippled compared to the native format, I could see a company start thinking about setting ODF as the default format. Figure in a few years this makes them in a much better and cheaper position to consider changing platforms. Of course if they don't want to, the research didn't cost them too much.
    • Hald the documents I created come out horridly screwed when I try to go back and forth between Office and OO. Text boxes get resized, floating graphics end up all over the place, graphics lose their transparent color, etc.

      It would be nice to have a way to go back and forth (between work and home, for example) with consistant results.

      -Eric

      • This might sound stupid, but have you tried version 2? I've had much better results with that. 1 was awful though, yeah.

      • Of course that apparently happense when you move between two copies of Word as well (or so the people to whom my GF sent a word file a couple days ago said... told her to make a PDF with OOo, but would she listen ?)
        • It also happens between computers with word, and even sometimes between printers. It also can happen between the print preview and the print.

          There are compatability settings in Word to help make it backwards compatable, but they are not automatic.

          As for printing, the most reliable way is to print to file using a postscript printer and then dragging the .prn file onto Acrobat Distiller and using Acrobat to print FWIW.

    • Re:Utilize isn't the same as support (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Deviate_X ( 578495 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @09:16AM (#13896320)

      The OpenOffice formats support only a subset of the funtionality in Word format - therefore there is emphasis on Import. But that does not exclude Export.

      Microsoft has a number other reasons why not to support OpenOffice file formats directly however, here are three:

      * OpenDocument has next to 0% market share (when opendocument has market share comparable to PDF, or HTML or RTF support considerations should be made)

      * OpenDocument Format is a legal mine-field. As stated previously OpenDocument is a subset of MsOffice format, any attempt my MS to Extend the format, or any perceived crippling of output (conversion from ms->opendocument --- downgrade) will leave Microsoft wide open to billion dollar anti-trust, anti-competitive, lawsuits from all the other members of the OpenDocument committee - please remember Ms had to pay Sun Micrososystems 2Billion US (Sun is also OpenDocument committee Member).

      * OpenDocument is a version 1.0 Spec and hence it is a moving target, and will probably go thru several revisions before the next Version of Ms office is released.

      For the above reason it is appropriate to leave the implementation of OpenDocument support in Ms Office versions in the hands of small third-party developers.

      • OpenDocument has next to 0% market share

        Maybe this is true in your backyard, but globally that is not the case. For one thing, you can count the state of Massachusetts as one big customer, and open office is rapidly becoming popular in may overseas circles. I know I read that the open-office format is actually the most used format in the world when you consider that users of MSO are fairly equally divided among the various versions. I'm to lazy to look it up now, but it certainly seems plausible. And

        • For one thing, you can count the state of Massachusetts as one big customer..

          Actually it remains to be seen how widely OpenDocument will be actually be deployed on the ground - as of now we only have the equivalent of a papal bull decreeing this is to be so. I suspect that there will be considerable push-back from the business (especially multi-state, multinational business) community which interacts with Massachusetts if this politicised OpenDocument requirement is applied too religiously.

          Microsoft is

          • ...as of now we only have the equivalent of a papal bull decreeing this is to be so. I suspect that there will be considerable push-back from the business (especially multi-state, multinational business) community which interacts with Massachusetts if this politicized OpenDocument requirement is applied too religiously.

            Wow, two references to religion in the same paragraph. I guess we are supposed now see that the ODF movement is just religious idealism fostered by anti-Microsoft fanatics. Its funny tha

      • Well that's MS's own damn fault (Score:5, Informative)

        by BobPaul ( 710574 ) * on Friday October 28, 2005 @10:27AM (#13896753) Journal
        * OpenDocument Format is a legal mine-field. As stated previously OpenDocument is a subset of MsOffice format,

        Microsoft is ALSO an Open Document committee member (and has been for many years). They've had ample opportunity to ensure that the OpenDocument format supports everything that they need it to.

        Since OpenDocument has been painstakenly crafted as Extensionable XML, there should be no problem with Microsoft Extending the standard to add support for anything that is not currently included, provided they do so using Pure XML without any of the binary nuggets they've included in their own XML format. If they extend the format properly through the OpenDocument committee, then their updates can become part of the standard rather than being a fork (which definately would give Microsoft a lot of flak.)

        Licensing on the ODF is actually very liberal [wikipedia.org] and Sun, the only IP owner for anything related to the ODF, has already released an IP claims relating to the use of ODF. This is something they can't sue Microsoft over anymore.

        --
        Bob/Paul

      • Re:Utilize isn't the same as support (Score:5, Insightful)

        by smallpaul ( 65919 ) <paul AT prescod DOT net> on Friday October 28, 2005 @10:39AM (#13896867)

        * OpenDocument Format is a legal mine-field. As stated previously OpenDocument is a subset of MsOffice format, any attempt my MS to Extend the format, or any perceived crippling of output (conversion from ms->opendocument --- downgrade) will leave Microsoft wide open to billion dollar anti-trust, anti-competitive, lawsuits from all the other members of the OpenDocument committee - please remember Ms had to pay Sun Micrososystems 2Billion US (Sun is also OpenDocument committee Member).

        That's just silly. Microsoft has hundreds of import/export filters with varying levels of quality. Nobody would ever implement import/export if it were possible to be sued by standards bodies or their member companies. Why hasn't anyone sued them over Word's horrible HTML? Ths Java situation was totally different. Java was not (and is not!) a standard. Microsoft was only allowed to redistribute Java because they entered into a conract with Sun. They violated that contract. Therefore they were sued. Half-assed OpenDocument support is not even remotely comparable. Half-assed OpenDocument support would be simply Microsoft doing business as always.

      • As stated previously OpenDocument is a subset of MsOffice format
        I believe you, but could you please list the differences or provide a link to a comparison of the features supported by the two formats?
    • Utilize (utilise ?) might not be the same as support, but wouldn't it be the same as "use" ?

      I'm not a native English (or US English) speaker but I've seen a lot of "utilize" lately and I don't quite see the point apart from wearing out keyboards faster (or scoring more at Scrabble).

      Dictionnary.com appears to make the following distinction :

      [...] the sentence The teachers were unable to use the new computers might mean only that the teachers were unable to operate the computers, whereas The teachers were una

  • How to get the State of MA to upgrade (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lseltzer ( 311306 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:40AM (#13895786)
    You know, it's kind of clever: Support it, but only in the new version.

    • Re:How to get the State of MA to upgrade (Score:5, Informative)

      by ThogScully ( 589935 ) <neilsd@neilschelly.com> on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:43AM (#13895798) Homepage
      This doesn't mean that MA can't switch to OpenOffice if they think it's the better solution for them. This does mean that they can use ODF files and *expect* everyone else to be able to open them. If someone can't because they're running Office, then they can just upgrade. This puts the expense of using Office and upgrading Office on the people who are forcing it down everyone else's throats. I don't use Office, but I do recognize a problem with exchanging documents with those who do. I generally save as Doc files for them and try to verify on another person's machine that it will open correctly. It's good to know that I may be able to just send them ODF files from now on.
      -Neil
      • "This does mean that they can use ODF files and *expect* everyone else to be able to open them."

        That's exactly the point. I know someone who was involved in the pitch to the Massachusetts government, and it's very hard to explain that distinction to someone who just wants to write documents and send them to other people. At least now the argument of what their users have on their computers is slightly weaker (except for the fact that people still use Word 97, so it's bound to be an issue for years whether

      • You're using RTF with a .doc extension, right?
        • That hasn't worked for me in the past. I know that was the way it was at one time, but I have little trouble saving a file as a DOC directly. I just verify that it looks alright before I send it out if I really care what it will look like, like a resume. At most, I find I may have to change the bullet symbol or something silly like that.
          -N
          • You send resumes out as DOC files? What the... why not PDF??
            • Because clueless people then get back to you saying "we only accept .doc files". Or more likely they will just delete your mail in accordance with company policy.

              Of course, you could try to get in touch with them and argue that PDF is indeed simpler for everybody involved (which would make sense since it actually is). However since the people who get the mail aren't the clueful people you hope to be working with but rather sub-management pointy haired wanabees, it's usually a lost cause.
              • Weird. I am only speaking from my experience, so I can't generalize at all, but every place I've applied (this is mostly tech jobs) has actually preferred PDFs. A few years ago, it was actually kind of impressive to use a PDF instead of a DOC; I know that one employer actually thanked me during an interview for sending in a PDF instead! Haha.
            • I usually do use PDF for resumes too, and HTML, and SXW. If a job poster is specifically asking for a MS Word file though, I'm not going to be a jackass and send them a PDF, specifically not following their request. I might as well not bother applying if my resume is just going in a trash bin.
            • Have you tried applying for a job through agencies?
              When I was recently looking for a job I as a matter of principle tried everything to avoid sending out in .doc format.

              Me: Here have my CV in ODF
              Job agency: What the hell format is that? Can I have it in word please
              Me: Here have a PDF!
              Job Agency: We can't edit that
              Me: Good - that's kind of the point of pdf
              Job Agency: Nope we need to edit it to remove your personal contact details
              Me: Here have a pdf without my personal contact details on it
              Job Agency: We need
          • I just verify that it looks alright before I send it out if I really care what it will look like, like a resume.

            For something like this where you really care about presentation, you should be using pdf, not doc. Especially if it is something like a resume where you don't want the recipient to be able to easily edit the file. Of course, OO has a pdf export button right there.

      • This doesn't mean that MA can't switch to OpenOffice if they think it's the better solution for them.

        But is it? Check out this article [zdnet.com] on ZDNet for a performance comparison of OpenOffice 2.0 and MS Office 2003. It seems legitimate since my own experience has been that OpenOffice is much much slower and resource intensive than the version of Microsoft Office 2003 I have.

        • Now to be fair, the last version of MS Word (not Office) I /really/ used (and hated with a passion) was "Word for Windows 2.0c" (which I ran on WFW 3.11 at the time).
          I do very occasionnaly use Office 97, which means I go help someone that can't figure out how to do something. Now I usually have no idea either but having used hundreds if not thousands of graphical apps with similar interfaces usully gives you an edge over the casual user, 25 years of computing does that to you.

          So anyway, I'm the first to adm
    • The description of the plugin suggests that it should be possible to port it to older Word versions too. Remember that Microsoft are retrofitting Word 12 XML support into older versions of Word (I'm not so sure about other apps, but I *think* the same is true for Excel and Powerpoint).

      Given that, you just use the XSL to produce an Office 12 XML doc, then open that with the existing support, much like in Office 12. I imagine you'd probably get somewhat inferior results, but then one expects that when using a

  • Support (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TechJones ( 781168 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:41AM (#13895792)
    MS Office also had support for WordPerfect files. If you want to have the leading Office software you must have support for your competition. OpenOffice has support for Word documents so it comes as no suprise that MS would do the same.
    • OpenOffice has support for Word documents so it comes as no suprise that MS would do the same.

      Indeed it would be a big surprise if MS didn't include support for Word documents even if OOo wouldn't :-)

    • Re:Support (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) *
      If they supported MS Works, it'd save the computer lab I work in a ton of trouble every semester.

      Then again, if PC manufacturers bundled OpenOffice with new PCs, that'd solve the problem, too.

    • Re:Support (Score:2, Insightful)

      by KiloByte ( 825081 )
      OpenOffice has support for Word documents so it comes as no suprise that MS would do the same.
      Wrong. MS Office doesn't support Word documents in general, but just those produced with the same version of Word, and -perhaps- with the previous one. In some rare cases, you may succeed with importing simple documents from even earlier versions -- but you will need to spend a long time reformatting everything.

      MS Office is compatible only with the same version, and even only if both computers have the same defau
      • The format its self is pretty compatible and hasn't changed that much since Office '97, and content seems to come across very reliability. The issue seems to be with formatting, especially complex formatting done by people who abuse Word to try to turn it into a page layout / DTP tool. These documents don't tend to make the transition from a newer version back to an older one at *all* well unless the user of the newer version is working in a mode that only gives them features from the older version, in whic
      • "Wrong. MS Office doesn't support Word documents in general, but just those produced with the same version of Word, and -perhaps- with the previous one. In some rare cases, you may succeed with importing simple documents from even earlier versions -- but you will need to spend a long time reformatting everything."

        What the hell are you talking about? At my previous company, we ran a mixed Office 2003/Office XP/Office 2000 environment. We NEVER had problems with PowerPoint, Word, or Excel - even between versi
    • it comes as no suprise that MS would do the same

      Except that their executives said at the time of the Mass. decision that they wouldn't. Now the developers are saying different things to what the execs told us then. Who do we believe? (The devs, of course... they know what they're working on)

    • Re:Support (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nine-times ( 778537 )
      MS Office also had support for WordPerfect files. If you want to have the leading Office software you must have support for your competition. OpenOffice has support for Word documents so it comes as no suprise that MS would do the same.

      There's a small problem with this idea: It's true that, if you want your office suite to be the dominant office suite, it helps to support other formats. However, if you're already the dominant office suite, and you want to maintain your monopoly, you might not.

      Everyone su

    • Re:Support (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ergo98 ( 9391 )
      MS Office also had support for WordPerfect files. If you want to have the leading Office software you must have support for your competition. OpenOffice has support for Word documents so it comes as no suprise that MS would do the same.

      Hello, my name is Rudimentary Software Marketplace Strategy and Economics. It's good to meet you.

      Let me tell you a few things about myself, for I am a complex, varying sort.

      For instance, if I'm an underdog trying to get into a new market, then I'll do everything I can to advo
  • Nice to see that some customers are not going to be pushed around into what they should use ...

    Makes sense really .. it is just another format that they should support .. like all the other (including 3rd party) plugins that are available for importing/exporting Documents.

    I just hope that it will never be an "Embrace and Extend" scenario ...
  • The article says they've hired a French company. With their 23 hour week, 14 weeks annual holiday (and never mind cheese breaks and strikes), it'll never be finished.

    And even if it is, it won't work.

  • PDF Support? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:45AM (#13895807) Homepage
    The company just announced support for PDF

    I imagine that this will add extra features to PDFs which Adobe's (or anyone elses) Reader won't be able to handle.

    Except Microsoft's Reader, obviously.

  • ODF Is Sweeping Through Governments (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:46AM (#13895810)
    Microsoft has no choice. Either they will support the format, in a usable form, or be increasingly left out of government, city/state/country level, contracts.

    I am surprised at how quickly ODF is becoming a must have feature. It makes perfect sense of course, but I think so many people have gotten so use to the "Microsoft is always the winner" mentality that they are having a hard time imagining that anyone would mandate an open format for documents.

    • Re:ODF Is Sweeping Through Governments (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ronanbear ( 924575 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:53AM (#13896168)
      OpenOffice.org are doing well. They have won this battle. M$ have tried to crush ODF by saying that they won't support it and tried to muscle customers into accepting their format. Now someone has stood up to them and they know that MA will just buy StarOffice they have to move onto phase 2. They don't care (much) about the money of the MA contract. What they don't want is StarOffice to gain important market share and extra development cash. Once that happens other governments will follow. M$ will give MA full OpenDocument support. But don't go thinking that the version of Office 12 you get with your Dell or on the shelf at Best Buy will have it. M$ will try and win the MA contract with Opendocument support but that doesn't mean they are gonna give that feature to everyone. Even making it a feature that you must install additionally from the 2nd CD would be enough to put most people off. M$ haven't given up the war. In fact they still think they will win.

  • Platform what? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cyclop ( 780354 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:50AM (#13895832) Homepage Journal

    SourceForge has the WindowsInstaller.msi listed as 'platform independent'."

    Ehm... Since when WindowsInstaller(s) have been 'platform independent'? Do I miss something?

  • It's all about the customer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dekortage ( 697532 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @07:57AM (#13895866) Homepage

    No, really, it is. If MS Word can open and save in OpenDocument XML format, then Microsoft can honestly say, "Sure, Mr. Corporate Buyer, go ahead and experiment with that open source stuff. And when you're done, you can rest assured that your data can safely return to Microsoft Word with nary a scratch."

    At the very least it is a slight nod to the increasing public awareness of open source software.

  • Microsoft playing catch-up (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:00AM (#13895876)
    They've heard that Open Office is beating them in bloat, and are scrambling to get back on top.
  • I know, of course not. After all, they have one less MS product to look at each day.

  • Quiet (Score:4, Funny)

    by squoozer ( 730327 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:04AM (#13895891)
    ...quietly engaging a French company...

    Not very quietly it would seem.

  • Looks Like Conversion Is One Way (Score:5, Informative)

    by canfirman ( 697952 ) <pdavi25 @ y a h o o . ca> on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:05AM (#13895893)
    By looking at the SourceForge project description it says, "This project aims at providing a plugin for Microsoft Word 2003 XML to open OpenOffice XML documents." It doesn't say that it converts Word XML format to OpenOffice XML format. So it's really not a true converter, because it won't allow you to save back into OpenOffice format.

    I find it interesting that Microsoft will support other document formats (such as WordPerfect - is anybody using that anymore?) but not OpenDocument.

  • This sounds a novel ploy. The next time Microsoft are asked to conform to some open standard, they will announce a relationship with a mysterious company in, say, the Yemen whose staff, it may even be insinuated, consist entirely of fanatical Muslims and convicted rapists. At that point, the Microsofties will ask the politicians on the interviewing panel to sign off on the tax dollars for the work, to be remitted directly to the nutters concerned, and sit back and watch the politicos slowly melt.

    In any c

  • Up to their old tricks? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mrogers ( 85392 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:22AM (#13895983)
    The problem with an extremely liberal license is that it can be embraced and extended. The best way for Microsoft to kill OpenDocument would be to implement it perfectly, wait a year, then add lots of cryptic, undocumented extensions that are only supported by MS Word. When you receive an OpenDocument email attachment you'll be in the same position you're currently in with .doc attachments - it might work, it might not, and you'll never be sure the document's supposed to look the way it looks on your computer, unless you're running Word.

    OASIS (the consortium behind OpenDocument) is doing its best to avoid licensing issues and legal arguments [wikipedia.org], which unfortunately seems to mean you can write whatever you want and call it OpenDocument, or at least "OpenDocument-based" or some other form of weasel words.

  • Not "Open Office XML format" (Score:5, Informative)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:29AM (#13896030) Homepage
    It isn't the "Open Office XML format". It's the OASIS Open Document Format. Microsoft is attempting to confuse the issue by deliberately confounding "Open Office" and Open Document".

  • Denial (Score:5, Informative)

    by debilo ( 612116 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:31AM (#13896038)
    Apparently, Microsoft has already denied this. [tgdaily.com]
    I got that on OSNews.com yesterday.

  • It's not a filter (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you look at the source code [sourceforge.net], you'll see that it's a plugin that adds a "Import OpenOffice Document..." command to the File menu. It uses an XSLT transformation to convert the document into a a file Microsoft's patented/proprietary WordML document which is only supported in Office 2003 and then directs Word to open this file. Subsequent saves to the document would simply update the "temporary" WordML document (without prompting).

    A real filter would add an SWX option to the normal Open dialog (and allow
  • I think we need to thank state of MA. Now Open office can flourish. Whether MS supports saving the documents in ODF format or not atleast they can read it. This helps open office usage. It would have been much nicer if they had put the support for older versions too.(I know why would they)

  • There is no there there (Score:3, Informative)

    by shis-ka-bob ( 595298 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:36AM (#13896067)
    Look at the code in the tarball. To be polite, it is a bunch of empty stubs that 'implement' enough methods so that the code will compile. There is a dtd that has a single line (the XML document declaration
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    )
    • Look at the code in the tarball. To be polite, it is a bunch of empty stubs that 'implement' enough methods so that the code will compile. The file office.dtd that has a single line containing the XML document declaration

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

      . This could be the foundation of a working translation, but lets see if they actually do the work and get this done.

      Finally, look at the license:

      Redistribution and use of this program in source and binary forms, with or without modificati

      • I think the code itself is BSD-licenced, the other bits are essentially attribution (which might be included in the "new" BSD licence, I'm not sure) and a bunch of disclaimers about the fact that it needs the MS Office XML format schemas in order to work, I think.

        I am so far from being a lawyer that it's untrue though, so large pinch of salt there. It certainly appears to allow commercial use, which is handy.

  • Matter of time (Score:4, Interesting)

    by smallguy78 ( 775828 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @08:39AM (#13896087) Homepage
    Reading http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510261 95537674 [groklaw.net] describes how the body responsible for advising UK schools on IT policies (BECTA) is planning to force schools to

    "...use software that saves files in open formats (see pages 25 and 26).".

    Following from this, it probably won't be long until government bodies follow suit in the UK, and the trend spreads from country to country.

    Microsoft will then definitely be forced to support the OpenDocument standard, or someone will get very rich writing plugin to do so.

    Office vs competition will then be down to features and useability rather than format tie-ins (Microsoft purposely tieing people to their products surely stems from a satanic Sales/Marketing department rather than evil developers).

    If the competition comes down to UI/useability I think Star Office and OpenOffice are a long way behind MS Office, both tending to looki like cheap shareware applications at the moment. Which then leaves the doorway open for a company to take OpenOffice, pretty-fy it and sell it for a vastly reduced amount compared to Office (unless the license restricts this?)

    • Following from this, it probably won't be long until government bodies follow suit in the UK, and the trend spreads from country to country.

      Why does your comment - and the dozens of other comments just like it - remind me so much of Disco Stu. "Sales of Disco records were up 200% in 1979... if these trends continue... eeeeyyyy!"

      There is far too small a dataset to extrapolate any trends. I hope, like many others, that OASIS ODT becomes the dominant document format. That would mean I could continue t

  • So it won't be a native format of office then?

    Why can't they INNOVATE themselves a filter? Because after walking through the Redmond courtyard, who knows how their shoes will taste.
    • How could it be? The OASIS document format doesn't support all the features that Word's current document format does. If they used it entirely, they'd either have to remove a ton of features from their word processor, or they'd have to add all kinds of Microsoft Word-specific extra data to the file that would a) possibly make it incompatible with the standard, and b) piss off everyone here on Slashdot.
  • ... they gonna use a fully *compatible* implementation of ODF?? *LOL* Then you really don't know microsoft at all...

    As we all know (example: Java), microsoft never had problems "implementing" some non-ms-standards. But usually they just become *a bit* incompatible for no reason and then it becomes a ms-standard and the original creator has nothing to say anymore...
    Maybe they get sued, but this does not change their behaviour because they achieve to even earn money from it. (You know what their "punishement"

  • The first E (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Johnny Mnemonic ( 176043 ) <mdinsmore.gmail@com> on Friday October 28, 2005 @09:20AM (#13896340) Homepage Journal

    The first "E" in "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" is "Embrace". We are here.
    • Microsoft: We won't support OpenDocument.
      Slashdot: You are bad monopolists trying to kill open standards!
      Microsoft: Oh. Fine, we will support OpenDocument.
      Slashdot: You are just embracing it so you can extinguish it, to kill open standards!
      Microsoft: ...
  • This is a checklist item for Microsoft, to address problems like they are having in MA. It lets Microsoft zealots and people resistant to change in companies and the government buy MS Office even when there are regulations requiring support for open document formats. Microsoft has done the same with many other standards. For example, their POSIX support gets around POSIX requirements, but it is pretty much useless in practice. The fact that they are outsourcing this tells you how low priority it is for

  • PDF? (Score:2)

    by Hugonz ( 20064 )
    The company just announced support for PDF

    Really? next time they'll be announcing support for this Internet thinghie...

  • You need to print the entire EULA and christen every page of it with your own blood.
  • Microsoft doesnt want OpenDocument, as, if adopted by everyone, it allows competition and may threaten their monopol. Also, as it is written by a commitee, they cannot simply add a new functionality when it would be usefull for them.
    So they try to kill it, by anouncing publicly that they wont support it.

    However, MS also cannot aford not to support it, should it really become a requirement by governement agencies. Therefor, MS has to be able to support it if they cannot kill it.

    So they are playing poker : bl

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