On Thursday 13 September 2007 22:52:58 William Case wrote: > 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?
What I just posted is what is going on. Microsoft indeed is not stupid by got caught with a situation that will take away a big enough market share to cause major catastrophe to the Microsoft Empire. Governments are putting laws into place that require documents to be produced and stored in a non-proprietary and open format. Microsoft has been able to maintain dominance because they use proprietary formats and change them every time they come out with the newest version of their software. The Microsoft spin and marketing dept can't compete with or overcome laws that tie their hands. They have to, for probably the first time in years, shift strategy to maintain their position. Microsoft did not take the open source community seriously until the last few years. It became clear to them that the open source community was actually gaining ground and is being taken seriously by the people. The fact that OASIS was able to create the ODF and then it got approved by ISO was a major victory for open source and that in turn became a major blow to Microsoft unless they can get ooxml approved. Non of the process with Microsoft to get this is based on merit. It is based on money in the hands of people to persuade other people. Every company that tries to hang on to their market through lockin methods and increased prices will eventually fall. Look what happened to Apple and Microsoft played on it. Apple is slowly coming back because they changed strategy. Look at Oldsmobile, oh! I forgot! You can't the company is no longer in business. In the 70s the Olds Cutlass was the most sold car beating all makes and models across the board. businesses spring up, grow and eventually fall if they don't adapt to the changes. Change is the name of the game. Businesses must change or lose. Have you bought a harness for your horse and buggy lately? Even my employer is beginning to feel the heat of the Microsoft price machine. Every time a new OS comes out, the number of peer-to-peer boxes that can be on the same workgroup without the server OS gets smaller. With NT it was 10, 2000 it was 8, XP it was 6. I don't currently know what it is for Vista. These kind of changes are going to cut deep into the company profits. We sell POS systems to restaurants and bars. If we stay with Microsoft we are going to lose profit because we are going to have to buy the server OS to set up the networks for the customers boxes. We have been using 2000 as much as possible but that is about to get cut off. I for one would love to see us switch to Linux. I have been pushing it hard and have made a little progress. I know eventually I will be successful in getting them to switch. I made the switch from Microsoft to Linux more than five years ago at home and I am glad I did. -- 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]
