Open Document Format Wins Round One
Some people may say that this move by Microsoft to release an ODF converter is definitely in line with their embrace and extend tactics. They go further to claim that this should not be considered a win for Open Document Format (ODF) supporters. Here is a scoop from Ars Technica.
Microsoft today released the final version of an open-source document translator for Microsoft Word that allows the user to save files in the OpenDocument (ODF) format. The conversion utility, hosted on SourceForge, has been in development for several months in a partnership between Microsoft and open-source developers.
The ODF format has received a considerable amount of press over the last couple of years, mostly because of a battle that went on inside the Government of Massachusetts over whether or not Microsoft’s new XML-based format, Office XML, would be an acceptable document format for government archives. The fight was more than a little political, but in the end resulted in a compromise: Massachusetts would upgrade to the new Office, but would use a translator (such as the one released today) to save all documents in ODF format.
Yes, these users might be enticed to used Microsoft products even if they are using ODF formats. However, as more and more users move to ODF formats, there is less and less inhibition to move to OpenOffice (or any other open source office productivity suite that supports ODF). It should now be up to the end users to ensure that Microsoft does not embrace and extend the format by ensuring that they configure their office suites to always save in ODF format using the open source converter. This way there are always people ensuring that the ODF converter is not corrupted with unsupported features.
