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Microsoft 'must support OpenDocument'

Ingrid Marson ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 06 Oct 2005 16:50 BST

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Industry analysts and open source advocates believe that Microsoft will have no choice but to offer support for OpenDocument when more organisations start following the state of Massachusetts' lead.

Earlier this week, a Microsoft executive said that it was not supporting the open file format due to the absence of interest from customers. At the same time, the company said it was adding support the PDF to Office 12 after receiving "over 120,000 requests a month" from customers.

OpenDocument, which was approved by the standards body OASIS in May, has already been embraced by the commonwealth of Massachusetts and is being considered by governments in other countries and US states, according to IBM.

An OASIS spokeswoman said on Wednesday the public sector is making "great strides" in terms of user demand for OpenDocument.

Microsoft will be forced to offer support for OpenDocument if more organisations decide to use the file format, according to James Governor, an analyst at RedMonk.

"ODF [OpenDocument] is quite new, and it will take a while for demand to build. But I don't believe it will need 120,000 requests a month to change Microsoft's mind; just a few more high profile departures like Massachusetts," said Governor. "If Microsoft starts to lose customers because of a lack of ODF support they will offer a plug-in before you know it."

One of Microsoft Office's competitors, the open source productivity application OpenOffice.org, has already added support for the standard in its upcoming 2.0 release. John McCreesh, a marketing contact for OpenOffice.org, said that Microsoft's claim that there is no interest in OpenDocument is "curious".

"Possibly Microsoft is happy to lose the business of US States one after another, starting with Massachusetts, as they shut out Microsoft for failing to adopt the OpenDocument standard. Sounds like interest from customers to me," said McCreesh.

He claimed that Microsoft delaying support for OpenDocument is likely to drive people to migrate to OpenOffice.org.

Mark Taylor, the executive director of the Open Source Consortium, agreed that Microsoft's refusal to support OpenDocument is unlikely to be good for business, but was sceptical that Microsoft had received as many as 120,000 monthly requests for PDF.

"One has to question whether 120,000 people a month would contact Microsoft about anything," said Taylor. "Microsoft will either have to adopt open standards, or continue its slow slide into irrelevance."

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Full Talkback thread

36 comments

  1. Mr. Taylor, do you actually know how many customer... Anonymous
  2. OpenOffice does have an export as PDF functio... Anugraha
  3. It just floors me how many folks line up in s... Steve Thompson
  4. What's the population of Massachusetts? Isn't it m... Tomas Marek
  5. There is a very good text about it here: http://ww... Anonymous
  6. Can you imagine any other industry where if s... Richard
  7. Microsoft is gambling that they can brea... Dan Clayton
  8. Yet another prediction of Microsoft's defeat. Wasn... Matt S
  9. Quote: "The problem is, in its search for a p... Neal Schulz
  10. "The problem is, in its search for a phi... Matt
  11. Re Matt: Netscape nearly did harm Microsoft.... Richard
  12. Most people seem to either hate them or... Anonymous
  13. Does anybody know what the licensing terms are for... Tavis
  14. The logic is inescapable: OpenOffice can happily r... Paul Vincent
  15. Why do you hate Microsoft Office so much? It'... Microsoft Office Fan
  16. > Why do you hate Microsoft Office so mu... Rodd Clarkson
  17. Personally, I've been using OOo for... Mitch 74
  18. What a biased load of crap. Open office is shit. I... Anonymous
  19. What a biased load of crap. Open office is shit. I... Anonymous
  20. Doesn't anyone else see the problem with MS includ... Anonymous
  21. > Doesn't anyone else see the problem with MS... Flash
  22. > Doesn't anyone else see the problem wi... Rodd Clarkson
  23. ODF is _not_ "quite new", it is based on StarOffic... Anonymous
  24. Ad hominem attacks are the hallmark of MS apologis... Olavi Petri
  25. I disagree. MS Office is used so extensively that... Anonymous
  26. "MS Office is used so extensively that .doc i... Sean Jodrey
  27. Do people really believe in 5 years time... Jon
  28. >There is no more chance of people... Anonymous
  29. Point is people dont really ca... Jon
  30. Re: "Do people really believe... Richard
  31. Now I would not go as far as saying... Clifford
  32. Standards are not meant to be static. T... Anonymous
  33. makes sense i understand your point... Scott W
  34. %^SJAKDH ASL J^(A^ AOS A) )AS)A(US )(A*S That's ho... JJ
  35. Ejaculate on Microsoft! Testy Testerton
  36. Standards are meant to be fully backward compatibl... Arthur B.

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