Motivation
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| palapa May 22, 2008 12:03 PM EDT |
Either MS is making a craven attempt to avoid huge european fines, in which event the announcement is pure vaporware, or OpenOffice is stealing their lunch, in which event they will actually add capability. |
| rijelkentaurus May 22, 2008 12:08 PM EDT |
Since a Java update now includes an advertisement for OOo and a convenient installer, I'd say it's taken more than a small bite of their lunch, eventually it might take the whole sandwich. |
| tracyanne May 22, 2008 1:34 PM EDT |
Quoting:Most of the time, Microsoft's public declarations are pretty easy to parse. This announcement is too, it's typical vapour ware from Microsoft, all of which really say, "keep buying our products." This is not to say they won't add ODF to MS Office, and properly, but the announcement at this time is designed to keep people buying and using MS Office, because, well... now they don't need not to. |
| bigg May 22, 2008 1:56 PM EDT |
That sound you hear is the 800-pound gorilla hitting the ground. Just another announcement in a post-monopoly world. They could try to play games, but games are only successful for monopolists. When there are suitable alternatives, games speed up adoption of those alternatives. |
| TxtEdMacs May 22, 2008 1:56 PM EDT |
More likely explanations: customer upgrades are way below expectations. That is, the majority are still using MS Office, just an older version. Perhaps a certain percentage of the latter see no reason to move, because there is no really open exchangeable storage format. In the case of some government agencies where open formats are required this might pose a looming threat to MS market hold. There is another factor, in the EU the European Commission is pressing MS hard on interoperability another fine in the billion dollar range will even hurt MS. Or at very least it will be noticable, since it has become harder to fudge their "earnings" numbers. |
| dumper4311 May 22, 2008 2:02 PM EDT |
> "now they don't need not to" Maybe MS has finally got it figured out (doubtful, but possible). If they'd play fairly, interoperate with open standards, and be a little less anal about things, they wouldn't have nearly as much competition from F/OSS as they're starting to see now. As has been discussed in other threads, business is motivated by productivity first, balanced out by total cost. If MS operated by the above principles - which is what this ODF announcement is supposed to indicate - people would tend to keep paying for and using the devil they know. Learning to play nicely with the other children would go a long way to helping MS keep it's more informed customers (and government customers intent on transparency, or data integrity, or fair market anything, or . . . .) from switching away to more open solutions. At least short term - long term such standards transparency may lead to a widespread migration. Then at least, the battle rests where it should - who has the best applications and the best support. When the question is no longer "who owns your data?", vendors are left to compete on the merits of their solutions. This is what we should be working towards. Mind you, I recognize that Microsoft being willing to compete instead of control is a fantasy, but that's the point of pushing open standards in the first place. We want to force any such group into a position of competition, and break their standard of control. |
| bigg May 22, 2008 4:46 PM EDT |
> Mind you, I recognize that Microsoft being willing to compete instead of control is a fantasy That depends on whether or not they are a monopoly. Competing is the only choice if you've got competition. They don't do things to be nice. |
| garymax May 22, 2008 9:31 PM EDT |
Well, we have the Olympics to look forward to. I hear someone from Redmond will be competing in the chair toss competition. (Bet they win!) :-) |
| jdixon May 23, 2008 2:25 AM EDT |
> Bet they win! Hmm. If I were a betting person, my money would still be on Bobby Knight. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 23, 2008 12:34 PM EDT |
Quoting:Either MS is making a craven attempt to avoid huge european fines, in which event the announcement is pure vaporware I think they just don't want to lose all that European government business. If OpenOffice was able to move in, it could ripple all the way down and hurt MS Office on the Continent. But ... anybody using ODF might be more inclined to just install OO for free when they need to outfit a new workstation. |
| dumper4311 May 23, 2008 12:59 PM EDT |
>". . . anybody using ODF might be more inclined to just install OO for free" That's where things get good for us end users. Quite frankly, a little competition is just as beneficial for open code as it is for proprietary. I look forward to watching how this unfolds. |
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