On Thursday 13 September 2007 21:59:27 William Case wrote: > Hi; > > I have been following this thread with some interest. > > I have a curiosity question. > > On Thu, 2007-09-13 at 21:00 -0400, James Knott wrote: > > John Meyer wrote: > > > Harold Fuchs wrote: > > > > The problem for Microsoft is that many governments and other > > institutions around the world are insisting on using ISO > > standards. If OOXML is not an ISO standard, it'll be > > ineligible. Since MS refuses to use ODF, the only way they can > > sell to those organizations is to have OOXML declared a > > "standard". It's quite obvious from the published spec, that > > OOXML is simply an incomplete description of the way MS has > > done things and is tightly tied to Windows and MS Office. It > > also contains many significant bugs, such as claiming 1900 is a > > leap year. It's beyond me why a new standard should carry > > around such baggage. > > Putting aside the obvious benefits to Microsoft of having OOXML > declared an ISO standard, can or does Microsoft make any claim > that there is an additional benefit to the user when using OOXML? > If so, how true might that claim be?
There are no additional benefits. The only thing here for Microsoft is to get their format approved as an open document format so the governments that are already using Microsoft products will continue to use them and not switch to OpenOffice.org or another open source package that reads, writes & saves to ODF. That will close the door on OpenOffice.org probably for a very long time. If Microsoft fails to get what they want OpenOffice.org will get an accelerated launch into a very strong market share that will have a crippling affect on Microsoft. One of the strongest market shares Microsoft has is the office suite. They don't make much on their OS because they give it away to OEMs, governments and schools so the masses will have it by default. Be sides, the office suite is more expensive then the desktop OS any way. The office suite is being put OEM boxes in trial form to draw new users in and move existing users to an upgrade. With no approval OEMs will stop putting it on the boxes because people are going to be asking for an office suite that has ODF files so they can stay in line with the business world that will adjust to the government requirements. If ooxml is approved by ISO Microsoft will continue to dominate the business world because they will still have control over the document format through out the world. Just look at how much everyone adjusts to make other packages work with the Microsoft formats now. Getting the ooxml approved is an absolute must for Microsoft. -- http://24.197.142.167/ See the OpenOffice.org FAQ Microsoft users go to http://www.pclinuxos.com for a great user friendly Linux experience! --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
