Dienstag Mai 29, 2007

Why ODF is a safe bet!
Some people still question if the OpenDocument Format (ODF) is a feasible choice. Some people also believe they should continue doing what they have been doing for the last couple of years simply because they believe that the market situation can't be changed and that they themselves can't influence change. However, these people seem to forget what swarms can do compared to a single fish or what many ants literally can "pull off" if they work together. Maybe these people should watch Pixar's "A Bug's Life" again. What's going on globally regarding ODF is to a large degree a reflection of the power of different communities.

ODF has quickly become the XML document file format with the broadest application and platform support, and probably the largest user base as well. ODF is supported by OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, OpenOffice.org: Novell Edition, KOffice, IBM Workplace, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Abiword/Gnumeric, Textmaker, Thoughtslinger, Mobile Office and others. The supported platforms include Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, FreeBSD, OS/2, Symbian OS and Palm OS. Thus, all major operating systems are covered!

OpenOffice.org, as just one implementation of ODF, is improving and evolving quickly. As I recently mentioned here in my blog as well, Redflag Chinese 2000 Software is adding another 50 developers to the OpenOffice.org developer community. As a consequence, OpenOffice.org should get more features more quickly.

Even applications like Firefox and Microsoft Office can be used to view and/or create ODF files. For example the Sun ODF plug-in for Microsoft Word makes opening and saving ODF files with Microsoft Word 2003 a seamless task. A version of the Sun ODF plug-in that supports Excel and Powerpoint as well as older office versions is currently being tested by beta customers, with increasingly positive feedback. Thus, ODF can be used independent of platform, application and vendor preferences.

Sure, interoperability between different ODF implementations is not 100% perfect yet, either because a few applications don't implement every ODF feature or because ODF still needs some optimization. However, considering the current ODF momentum, ODF can be expected to evolve and mature very quickly!

I'm sure, the more users will use and demand ODF (i.e single fish come together to build swarms) the more Microsoft will add and improve their support for ODF as well. The ODF converter work initiated by Microsoft is just one sign of Microsoft's reactions to the user demand for ODF.

Now with Dell shipping PC's with Ubuntu pre-installed, the ODF market share will grow significantly because Ubuntu includes OpenOffice.org. Probably the additional visibility and credibility that Ubuntu got due to the Dell deal will lead to a lot more Ubuntu and OpenOffice.org installs than just the number of Ubuntu PC's shipped by Dell. For sure Google's ODF support in Google Search and Google Apps as well as IBM's millions of existing and soon upgrading Lotus users will also accelerate the ODF adoption. The huge number of daily sold PC's and Mac notebooks that don't come with a pre-installed office suite and thus will make people evaluate tools like OpenOffice.org will contribute to the success of ODF as well. Currently the number of ODF files on the web already outnumber by far the number of Ecma Office Open XML files.

I can't predict the future - if I could, I would play the lottery - but from my point of view the ODF stars are well aligned. It's fun to monitor the news because ODF news and success stories are coming in on a almost daily basis. I'll keep you updated!
( Mai 29 2007, 12:22:52 PM CEST ) Permalink