On Fri, 2006-03-10 at 17:42 -0500, Chad Smith wrote: > On 3/10/06, Sam Hiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > I strongly disagree, Chad. There are several points where ODF becomes > > highly relevant to Google's plan. > > > Not really. > > OpenDocument may be a nice alternative archival format - but it will never > replace .doc or .xls.
Never is a long time. Do you think MOOX will replace .doc and .xls eventually? Certainly MS believe so and if OD beats MOOX as the preferred open standard it will indeed eventually replace .doc and .xls but it will probably be 10s of years before you never sees another .doc or xls file just as you still see typewriters from time to time. > The point is, however, despite my personal views on the format - Google is > much more interested in getting a real program - not vaporware. Google's stock is largely based on speculation. Vapour ideas, which is why it will not be sustainable if it doesn't translate the projected growth into reality fairly quickly. That requires purchasing large established companies with reasonable growth potential but that is very expensive - eg buying Sun would cost billions. Buying start ups with phenomenal potential growth based on gambling on some industry trends is also necessary and likely to be a lot less expensive and if Google's presence and size is what these need to enable growth they are adding considerable value just by making the purcahase. Writely is an obvious example. Its not really an either or but a both. So Google could buy irows and wikicalc or neither. On balance I'd say Googles forage into OOo indicates they are likely to want to promote OpenDocument over MOOX but to what extent they are prepared to put hard cash behind that is difficult to say and I'm sure they will have worked out the cost-benefits of different options. -- Ian Lynch www.theINGOTs.org www.opendocumentfellowship.org www.schoolforge.org.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
