Erwin's StarOffice Tango

Erwin's StarOffice Tango
Erwin Tenhumberg's Insights into Open Source and Dancing
... or why Open Competition matters

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Donnerstag April 14, 2005

"Part III: When will Gates be Open ?"
I just came across this interesting article:

"But by merely promoting an open standard, and committing to it remaining free "perpetually", is not going to generate revenue for Microsoft. Even most (if not all) users of OpenOffice, whether on Windows or non-Windows operating platforms, still save all of their files in Microsoft Office formats. How will this result in greater sales of MS Office, or in stanching the rise of OpenOffice?

Perhaps it's the exact reverse - Microsoft has estimated that OpenOffice is not an immediate threat to its market, so opening up the standard will make no difference to its revenue through increased adoption of OpenOffice. Besides, opening up the standard also earns Microsoft goodwill from corporate America and state governments; it also earns it brownie points in its battle with the Open Source community and their backers, chiefly IBM, Novell and Sun. Finally, such a move also strengthens its claim of promoting open standards.

Whatever the impact of this move on the players invoved, in the end, the customer always stands to gain - either from an improved OpenOffice, or simply better file formats based on feedback from the technological community."

Microsoft is "opening up the standard"? What standard? What independent organization has defined the standard? If Microsoft really wants to be open, why don't they support the OASIS OpenDocument XML file format which is now backed by multiple companies and organizations including Sun and IBM? Read my earlier blog entry for more details and background information.
( Apr 14 2005, 04:48:09 PM CEST ) Permalink

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