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Format findings highlight ODF challenge
Jay Lyman, January 16, 2008 @ 2:37 pm ETThe Burton Group put out a report praising and recommending Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) document format over the Open Document Format (ODF). The report says choosing the ISO-approved ODF amounts to a political statement against Microsoft (which may count for more than stated given new investigations and sentiment in Europe). Burton Group concedes that ODF represents the only real competitive threat to Microsoft’s OOXML and says it should remain a competitive bargaining chip. However, Burton’s analysts describe OOXML as the superior format and standard.
One of the main reasons for that superiority: compatibility with prior Office document formats. Burton Group also complains that Sun Microsystems’ stewardship of OpenOffice.org and its impact on ODF will slow the format’s progress. It should be noted, however, that there are a number of other ODF backers that include Google, IBM, Novell, Oracle and Red Hat.
I see this as another call to ODF supporters to give the format full compatibility with Microsoft’s Office file formats. I wrote last year that the departure of some ODF backers was unfortunate, but also might prompt ODF’s remaining proponents to work on making the format fully Office-compatible.
That compatibility is key because whatever format that enterprise, government, educational and other users adopt, it will most likely have to work with their existing or others’ Microsoft Office formats.
That was the biggest factor that drove me to non-Microsoft office software: compatibility. While I had to worry about different Windows versions and incompatibilities using Microsoft Office software, I found OpenOffice worked with any Microsoft Office format, old or new. I still find it fascinating that Microsoft was not providing compatibility for its own formats and open source software was.
I believe in order to continue presenting a viable alternative and competition to Microsoft, ODF must maintain this type of compatibility with Microsoft’s formats. I realize this is no small task, but given the new antitrust investigations in Europe that include OOXML, Microsoft should be more motivated to do its part. ODF proponents should do theirs.
Categories: Software
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The report was put together by a Microsoft proxy. See:
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/14/burton-group-ooxml-puppet-microsoft/
There’s also a rebuttal
http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/BurtonGroupResponseFinal.pdf
Thanks for posting, Roy. I don’t agree with the report. If ODF is the only competition and only bargaining chip, then that’s reason enough for it to be used whenever possible. It’s also ahead of OOXML in that it is ISO approved. I also fail to see how Sun’s backing of ODF (which, as stated, also has the backing of a broad group of diverse vendors) should be more of a concern than a standard that has the backing of really only one, single vendor. My point about the challenge for ODF is that for it to win adoption, it must be unlike previous formats and standards from Microsoft. It must be interoperable and compatible with everything, including Microsoft.
JL
I’m continuing to collect more and more evidence of the ties between the firm and Microsoft. I apologise if it’s seen as ’strong’ content for this blog, but if you keep track of my posts, you’ll see how profoundly these issues can be explored. It’s good to have /true/ open source consultancies like yours out there. When it comes to OOXML/ODF studies, it’s sometimes the money which talks loudly, not a reality.
[...] will certainly be adoption of Microsoft’s OOXML, and this highlights the need for ODF interoperabiity and support. However, we may find that in these emerging and greenfield [...]
[...] should be greater given global antitrust pressures. ODF developers and supporters should take the opportunity to do likewise, thus improving format flexibility and choice. Permalink | Technorati Links | [...]