You are quite right that they have made their choice, but, as I say, it is immaterial which path they choose. M$ Office cannot continue to dominate that market when there are serious, inter-operable products available with a totally Free license at no cost. Especially with everybody looking to trim costs. This is exactly why right now Microsoft is trying to point out how much MORE expensive an Apple is. I contend that there is quite a lot more to Mac OS X than a logo, although I suppose Steve Balmer is entitled to his opinion. The point is, it doesn't take a shark to smell blood. I do not suggest that Office sales will immediately die by any stretch of the imagination. But with a work force ever more confidant in their ability to use the BIG TWO i.e. a web browser and word processor, smaller businesses won't see the need to buy licenses. And as the market's homogeneity grows Microsoft is faced with a dilemma. Suddenly people realize that there is other software. Software that isn't mediocre, and what's more, it's free of cost. They won't care that it is Free as in speech, more's the pity. But they will eventually force Microsoft to actually develop a worthwhile product. And they have one, it's called Xbox. They're not stupid.
Erik Johnson On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 5:07 PM, Henry E Schaffer <[email protected]> wrote: > Erik writes: >> ... Right now Microsoft has a choice. Rework M$ >> Office such that it will happily and effectively inter-operate with >> other office productivity suites, or stop selling M$ Office in Europe. >> Difficult decision, since an inter-operable M$ Office is an M$ Office >> your company can finally afford to replace with OpenOffice.org, and >> not selling office in Europe will lead to a slow but steady loss of >> market-share that will have the same effect. > > I thought that the new .docx etc. format solved this problem for them > in Europe. It is (supposedly) a standard format that everyone can > utilize. Openoffice and NeoOffice already do. > > Is there some other barrier to inter-operation? > > --henry schaffer > > P.S. To look more closely at the .docx format, rename the file to .zip > and then unzip it - and you'll see the separate files making up the > package. > >> ... > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
