Star Corel, Microsoft Open Doors to ODF Support
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 26th Oct 2005 10:55 UTC, submitted by Andrew Updegrove
Features, Office Corel apparantly did an impressive handbrake turn yesterday, because it confirmed it will support ODF-- an obvious shift in position seeing it only a week ago said it wouldn't. But that is not all on the ODF front today. Microsoft yesterday also opened the door to supporting ODF just a bit more. "Microsoft is working with a French company on translators to determine the scope of the problem in exporting Office documents to ODF. It sounds to me that support for "Save As" ODF in Office is a when, not an if." Andy Updegrove, who recently critized Corel heavily for not supporting ODF, replies.
E-mail Print r 0   37 Comment(s) http://osne.ws/9ku
Thread beginning with comment 51421
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.

Member since:

In a way, MS has been trying for years to get users to pay for a program when they already have an alternative that's good enough and mostly compatible with the latest and greatest. The alternative is to keep using software that has already been paid for and for all intents and purposes is free (as in beer) moving forward. The only reason that MS continues to add features to Office is because they want people to upgrade. Sure they get some revenue off of first-time sales, but how many people are there that don't already have a copy of Office by now.

People will still buy Office in the future, and companies will continue to pay for software that is more expensive than the alternative. MS is going to have stiffer competition in some areas because of ODF, but no matter what MS does the effects will continue to be slow for a while. The tough part is predicting whether adopting ODF will help or hurt MS (as a company, not just Office) in the long run. As a business that's all that MS cares about, and that's what their decisions are based on.

Reply Bookmark Score: 0