Open desktop mechanic

Google trends, ODF vs OOXML

Saturday Aug 18, 2007

I was wondering whether Microsoft's OOXML was as popular as the Open Document Format (ODF) in the U.S. I expected that since Microsoft's market stranglehold is more complete in the U.S., OOXML should be more popular in there but less popular in Europe and the rest of the world. But according to Google trends there are very few people searching Google for OOXML anywhere. Counts of files on the web also show that beyond a few odd websites such as Microsoft.com, very few people are publishing documents in Microsoft's OOXML format but hundreds of thousands of documents are being published in the open ODF document standard.

I wonder why Microsoft is going to all of the trouble of creating yet another open document standard when a very popular one already exists which can be made compatible with Microsoft Office by simply installing an ODF plug-in?

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Posted at 10:56PM Aug 18, 2007 by bnitz in Open-Source
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That wouldn't be a-la Microsoft, now would it? Microsoft only admits the competition has something better by buying the product. But since they can't buy the ODF, they won't use it.

Self-indulged bunch of fools, if you ask me.

Posted by SwitchBL8 on August 18, 2007 at 11:49 PM GMT+00:00 #

Brian,
"It's called FUD, Redmond has been practicing it's use for decades."
(Wonder what 'other diversions' they frequent? :)

Posted by William R. Walling on August 21, 2007 at 06:51 PM GMT+00:00 #

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