You are forgetting that there is also a quite a significant number of OO.o installations…

Check this..one more defeat.

http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Open_Letter_To_Mammootty#Mammootty.27s_Response

This was regarding to the Open Letter published few weeks back

http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Open_Letter_To_Mammootty#Open_Letter_to_Mamootty_from_Free_Software_Community

Really? With their distribution power (500+ million licenses), Microsoft have the opportunity to stall ODF development to whatever implementation that is part of Microsoft Office. It does not matter if OpenOffice moves to 1.2, 2.0, as long as the fate of ODF is out of open source people hands. This would qualify as Embrace and Extinguish.

What would be better is an distribution agreement between OpenOffice and Microsoft. A kind of Windows Update for Office, in which how ODF updates are shipped to users. This is the kind of thing you discuss very early, usually. That Microsoft went their way (the ODF implementation will probably be the work of an intern, as it usually is) only shows their true motive.

Why further is Microsoft is just trying to gain some more time (end of 2009)?, well as written by a groklaw commenter… [the more time passes, the more people are getting locked by the OEM installations of Vista coupled with 30-days-limited versions of Office that are shipped by some OEMS instead of MS Works (HP, to name one)]…
[QUOTE]
DOCX. This means current users of MS Office 2007 …
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, May 22 2008 @ 09:33 AM EDT
will be building up a collection of docx documents which will potentially lock
them into MS Office again.

Currently I’m refusing to accept docx.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ] [/QUOTE]

If MS treat ODF as a second-class format, then they’re not embracing it, and no-one serious about ODF is going to use it. If no-one serious about ODF uses it, then it’s not in a position to wreck the format.

I’m not saying that there couldn’t be problems with Microsoft’s approach, I’m just saying I don’t think you can describe it as EEE based on the premise of a poor initial implementation.

For what it’s worth, I basically agree with you: I think Microsoft’s motivation is to make Office the “best” suite with regards features and file format support on the market, to the extent that people won’t consider other software. I just don’t think you can describe that as EEE, that’s all.

If someone’s ready to go with (for example) OOo 3, having ODF 1.1 support in Office isn’t going to change the balance very much.

It’s a marketing routine and a way to circumvent policies. Forget about practicalities and think about the recent debacle down in SA.

The Netscape/IE issue was not technical. If you haven’t watched BillG DOJ anti-trust deposition, a 10-hour video, you owe it to yourself.

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=GatesDepo

We have some smoking guns here:

http://boycottnovell.com/comes-vs-microsoft/text/

I’m not afraid. Keep this for you thanks. I’m explaining that the latest move from Microsoft is just a variation of what they have done for two decades.

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2007/01/24/Mixup

“Those with long memories might suggest a parallel between Rick’s position and mine when in 1997, I was sitting on the XML Working Group and co-editing the spec, on a pro bono basis as an indie consultant. Netscape hired me to represent their interests, and when I announced this, controversy ensued. Which is a nice way of saying that Microsoft went berserk; tried unsuccessfully to get me fired as co-editor, and then launched a vicious, deeply personal extended attack in which they tried to destroy my career and took lethal action against a small struggling company because my wife worked there. It was a sideshow of a sideshow of the great campaign to bury Netscape and I’m sure the executives have forgotten; but I haven’t. Anyhow, I thought I had to point that out first before somebody else dredged it up, but I totally don’t think Rick’s status played in this story and I’m also 100% confident of his integrity.“

If we’re honest, there aren’t many people who are going to be tossing up between OpenOffice.org and Office. If someone’s ready to go with (for example) OOo 3, having ODF 1.1 support in Office isn’t going to change the balance very much.

On the other hand, being able to give people copies of OOo and not have to switch it out of ODF mode (which, like it or not, is a necessity for some) looks like it could be possible.

The Netscape/IE issue was not technical. If you haven’t watched BillG DOJ anti-trust deposition, a 10-hour video, you owe it to yourself.

“If you’re afraid of EEE, then your fear ought not to be that Office’s ODF implementation is not very good; the fear ought to be that Office’s ODF implementation is excellent. If Office users started saving ODF files as a matter of course, de facto you would get ODF files that (e.g.) OpenOffice.org can’t open: ODF files with Office macros, for example.”

I’m not afraid. Keep this for you thanks. I’m explaining that the latest move from Microsoft is just a variation of what they have done for two decades. This is pure business influence, not technical. The intention is to ensure as little as possible corporate customers even think about testing an alternative product.

Yes, I agree 100%. Particularly, I think I neglected to mention the procrastination aspects earlier. When Microsoft says “2009″ there’s no guarantee and the company says nothing about the quality (fidelity) that’s guaranteed in SP2. It’s all just an attempt to freeze the market (it’s a good phrase because even Microsoft uses it, which shows how it treats ‘customers’ and secures lock-in).

Alex, thanks for the link. I’ve been accumulating people’s thoughts on this and I’ll post some later.

The behaviour you describe isn’t actually “classic embrace, extend, extinguish”: that has always been associated with treating something as a first-class citizen, not second class.

If you remember back to the Netscape situation, IE4 was clearly the better browser by some distance. It behaved very similarly to Netscape, and sites designed to work with Netscape didn’t break often in IE4. It supported HTML better than Netscape did, and CSS was a lot better.

If you’re afraid of EEE, then your fear ought not to be that Office’s ODF implementation is not very good; the fear ought to be that Office’s ODF implementation is excellent. If Office users started saving ODF files as a matter of course, de facto you would get ODF files that (e.g.) OpenOffice.org can’t open: ODF files with Office macros, for example.

He must be laughing his ass off on this…

Its all vapourware

Welcoming noises being made by the likes of Rob Weir though, so it looks hopeful.