Hmm! On Thu, 2007-09-13 at 22:33 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 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. > > [snip] > > 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. > I agree with all that you say.
In various discussions I have read, I have not seen any claims made by Microsoft that the OOXML has any benefits for the consumer. Their argument seems to be only that OOXML should *also* be an ISO standard because of Microsoft's deep market penetration. On the other hand, whatever one thinks of Microsoft they are not stupid. They must be making some consumer claims (true or not). OOXML is a new file type, so they can't logically base their argument on existing widespread use. What is going on? -- Regards Bill --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
