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Right. I believe in Microsoft's good ODF support only if I see it.

And it's going to take quite SOME interoperability testing on Microsoft's part, to make MSOffice both read and produce ODF code which perfectly roundtrips with OpenOffice.
What they showed us with their Excel ODF support did definitely NOT convince me of Microsoft's honesty.

Honestly, there's nothing wrong with selling more copies of Office....

As long as they have 100% compatibility with open formats with ODF without artificially sacrificing features.

Some will argue that there's a problem in general with closed-source software. Sure. But an even bigger problem is lock-in. Microsoft is notorious for doing this with their file formats and even their web browser. People use their software because "it works", but it only works because everyone else is uding their software.

Now, the thing is, even if they finally manage to get around to supporting ODF properly (turned out that no other office suite could read ODF files produce by Office or vice versa), they'll probably also treat it like a second-class citizen, artificially restricting features. Now, while there may certainly be a difference in philosophy between the way MS Office was originally designed and the way ODF is designed, necessitating some extra work to shoe-horn it in, the loss of functionality should really only be very minor. Microsoft, however, is likely to "get lazy" (on purpose), and thereby encourage people to use the native format to get all the features.

Currently-released forms of ODF simply do not support a number of things which are needed for Office features that already exist. There would be quite a big loss of functionality in the formulas space (as we have seen already) and in the change-tracking space (which we haven't seen yet).

Well, Microsoft trying to make money is not really a problem - that is the point behind doing business afterall.

However I do wonder how compatible Microsoft's ODF support with be with OpenOffice.org's - currently in the spreadsheet department I hear the two are incompatible.

That would be the BallotOS, when you buy a computer at the shop and you turn it on the first time at home or the office, it will shop the BallotOS asking what OS you would like to have installed (with the included drivers if needed).

:-)

And perhaps with a little "recommended" next to it or, if that is too blatant, some other way of subtly hinting that it is better than the alternatives.

They say the ballot would be 'unbiased'.

Else it reminds me of ripping cd's in Windows Media player, hope they don't do it anymore, but a few years ago you could choise between .wma and .mp3. Wth an example of the two, .wma sounded briljant, the .mp3 variant sounded far from that.

This already exists in Office 2007 SP2. One of the options is ODF (in addition to such venerable formats as DOC and WordPerfect).

If Microsoft (who apparently employ some of the smartest developers in the world, so we are told) had problems interpreting parts of the ODF specification, they only had to ask the Oasis group for guidance.

Everyone else managed to implement ODF themselves without the problems Microsoft apparently had.

They could have just looked at how OOo interpretes it. Not that OOo would have been EXPENSIVE, so that developers would have had to share one license.

I think it is NOT a stupid idea. I just assume that Microsoft will make their ODF implementation non-interoperable with all the others.

Exactly. This is hilarious

I love the people claiming MS *has* to support open formats. They don't. It is their software package, they should be able to use whatever format they please. Be it proprietary or not. It is good that they are supporting some of the open formats like ODF, though.

You are literally the only person that still inspires me to comment on this site steve.

I find it odd that the EU is going after them now. When they were declared a monopoly initially in the states, they were the only usable maintained OS on commodity hardware. Nowadays you have options walking into any consumer electronics store, and even more if you order online, we are living in a very different world then it used to be. I think it is important to watch microsoft and keep them from stifling things, but at the same time punishing success is the diametric opposite of laissez-faire, it is the mark useless vultures that ayn rand loved to write about so much. MS feels they need to market their browser for the first time in about 20 years, why choose now to require install time choices? H.264 and On7s VP-6 are the de-facto standards in video distribution nowadays, why require windows ship without a media player?

I still do not understand why the government never broke microsofts divisions up into separate corporations, since that would have probably had the best outcome for everyone (other then the MS shareholders). Not going that route has definately caused stagnation in the industry. However, that time is coming to an end (apple taking 91% of pc sales over 1000$, java is the de facto standard for most software being developed, interop with MS protocols and formats is the best it has ever been on other platforms, the browser wars 2.0 is about standards compliance instead of propriatary features, etc, etc)

The appeals court threw out Jackson's remedy, dismissed him from the case for incompetence, and sent the case back to the lower court for the remedy phase to be retried under narrower guidelines. Under the new guidelines and before a genuine impartial judge, the DOJ knew that they wouldn't get anything like what Jackson ordered, so they and Microsoft settled. And that settlement set up a compliance regime, including both internal and external compliance committees, which give Microsoft clear guidelines as to what's OK and what isn't.* And while parts of that settlement expired as originally scheduled to in November 2007, other parts have been extended, as agreed to by both the DOJ and Microsoft (and the judge).

* The compliance regime set up in the DOJ/MS settlement differs from what goes on in the EU. The EU provides no guidelines whatsoever as to what's OK at any given time. Microsoft has asked the EC multiple times, "If we do so-and-so, is that OK?", and the EC says, "It's not up to us to say what's OK, it's up to you to be compliant with EU law." The only problem is that EU antitrust law has no guidelines so a company can never know what's OK and what isn't. The EU antitrust law is basically the EC's whim at any given moment. This is done intentionally, so that a company releases a product, THEN the EC comes in and says, "Ah-ha!! This product does so-and-so, which we don't like so here's a billion dollar fine." See, if the EC said told that company that the product would be in violation before the product was released, then the company would change the product accordingly, and deny the EC the opportunity to make a big public splash with a fine after the release of the product. The EC want so show that they are actually doing something, so they wait for the product to be released so that they can level their huge fines as a public show.

The US DOJ did not "go AWOL". They responded to the appeals court ruling and settled with Microsoft and set up a compliance regime that affords guidelines and due process. The EU never set up a rigourous compliance regime at all, but rather act on Nellie's whim. And even you seem to say that part of the EU's motivation is that they hated Bush (and I guess you maintain that they hate Obama for not renewing the case against Microsoft?). If the anti-America feeling that Bush engendered was/is part of the EU's motivation, then that shows even more that their case has been unjust.

Edited 2009-08-08 02:42 UTC

If Microsoft asks for guidelines how to make a product, the EU comission does not need to know if that is OK or not.

If a competitor comes along and asserts that something with the product distorts the market, then the first thing the EU commission asks for the both of them to specify how each of them wants the product to be. Then they ask both parties to agree on something.
ONLY if they cannot agree on something, the EU commision takes the interest to learn what is going on, how it relates to EU regulations, and specifies how things should be. ONLY when the company does not comply with that, fines are set to bring them in line.

Microsoft tried this out the hard way, when they repeatedly (!) refused to hand out useful interoperability specs for the SMB and AT protocols.
Even then, they did not get fined a really big amount of money until it was obvious they don't want to comply. Microsoft came into compliance only after they got a fine on a daily basis until they were in compliance.

NOW Microsoft is in a REALLY sticky situation. They are known in the EU commission as feet-dragging market bullies. You can imagine, that the EU commission will send them a big invoice now every time they start playing the same game as between 2004 and 2008. But the EU will NEVER fine them if they make an honest move to get into compliance if non-compliance should happen to them inadvertently, as long as they were acting to put things right FAST.

and she uses these show trial to show how tough she is or whatever. Same goes for the absurd fines that she levels. Those fines aren't about the money (well, not entirely), it's to show who's boss. And the EC has semi-dictatorial powers (no due process is given to the accused, guilt is declared without trials, etc), and she's using those semi-dictatorial powers for all their worth, in attempt to parlay her "wins" into the EU presidency. Naked ambition is all that this is about, period.

Excuse me, but to my knowledge the EU commission tried for the better part of 4 years (!) to get Microsoft to release the SMB and AD network protocol specifications.
They started with smaller fines, and only when Microsoft refused to comply with EU regulations did they finally come into compliance.

Contrary to the USA political system, where effective measures of restoring the market to a healthy state became impossible after Microsoft started to give huge amounts of money to politicians, Neelie Kroes proved to be not buyable by money. And she showed Microsoft that a healthy market is the only way for Microsoft to stay in business and profitable in the EU.

Maybe Microsoft will give up the EU Market, once they are truly forced to give up their lock-in tactics with MS-Office, simply because they can get more money out of the rest of the markets in the world with their lock-in in place.