[Update (19/06/2008) : We have supplementary screenshots in this follow-up post.]

It is already known that Microsoft fought ODF like fire. It even ran a Get the Facts-type campaign against it. It's easily provable because it is all well documented.

In the IRC conversation below (a fragment from Monday), you will find some of the latest examples.

---

<Eruaran> Currently if you attempt to open a .odt document for example in Microsoft Word, you get assailed by dialogues that say the document is corrupted, asks you if you want to 'fix' it, and it insinuates you shouldn't trust it or the source it came from. <schestowitz> Remember DR-DOS? <Eruaran> I know there are many people who will think negatively about ODF because of this kind of flat out BS in Microsoft products. <Eruaran> yes <schestowitz> http://boycottnovell.com/2007/08/03/do-dos-odf-microsoft-sabotage/ <schestowitz> http://boycottnovell.com/comes-vs-microsoft/text/msg00083.html <schestowitz> http://www.boycottnovell.com/comes-vs-microsoft/text/msg00194.html <Eruaran> I love this one: "If Microsoft says you’ve got five fingers on each hand, many people will insist on an independent count." <schestowitz> Microsoft: "what the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is dr-dos and then go out and buy ms-dos, or decide not to take the risk for the other machines he has to buy for in the office." <Eruaran> Even if they tell the truth, nobody trusts them, such is their history and reputation. <Eruaran> yes, they are up to the same old tricks <schestowitz> "Concerns have been raised that DR-DOS incompatibilities and flaws are being overlooked by reviewers. [...] We recommend that we *informally* plant the bug of FUD in their ears. “Have you heard about problems with DR DOS?” <Eruaran> I decided to try and open an open document in Word one day just to see what happened... what I saw simply disgusted me. * PetoKraus (n=Peter@host-77-247-224-25.isper.sk) has joined #boycottnovell <Eruaran> Have you seen the clip on YouTube where a guy attempts to use Vista's voice regognition with OpenOffice ? <PetoKraus> :D <Eruaran> He tries it out with MS Word, then word pad and it all works fine <schestowitz> http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/BurtonGroupResponseFinal.pdf [PDF] (Microsoft's Burton puppet: "ODF is simplistic" (bad word). Beat in mind that Pete O'Kelly later had contracts with Microsoft. Lots of money. <Eruaran> Then he tries it with OpenOffice and Vista's speech recognition suddenly develops selective deafness and an inability to comprehend basic speech patterns. <PetoKraus> Eruaran: got vid? <PetoKraus> *link <schestowitz> Yes, please. <Eruaran> yes, just a sec PetoKraus (and hello) <PetoKraus> i'd even launch firefox to see that :) <schestowitz> That;s something to write about. Also your easrlier observation., <Eruaran> If you like I could take some screenshots tomorrow at work <Eruaran> of the dialogues MS Word gives you when you try to use and ODF document <schestowitz> Please do. The error message. I can make an Ogg from YouTube vids. <schestowitz> Yes, a screenshot would be good. <PetoKraus> schestowitz: how do you do that, anyway <Eruaran> I was disgusted when I first saw them because I knew that Microsoft knows damn well what a .odt is <schestowitz> akf told me about a service that allows you to download the flvs. I used to have PyTube working, but Google broke its functionality.

---

It ought to be pointed out at this stage that Microsoft claims to have become 'buddies' with ODF [1, 2, 3, 4]. Not quite, eh? Later on came the video, which we have produced an Ogg Theora version of.

As embedded Flash, for those who prefer it in this form:



This conversation then continued:

---

<Eruaran> Vista speech recognition refusing to work with OOo: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5sVQlphmqsU <Eruaran> One commenter says: It is a demonstration of how Vista speech recognition is deliberately crippled with a non-Microsoft piece of software. * mark_antony_ken1 (n=user@host86-152-103-82.range86-152.btcentralplus.com) has joined #boycottnovell <PetoKraus> LMAO <schestowitz> Wow. <schestowitz> The "Wow" starts.... now. <Eruaran> yes * mark_antony_ken2 (n=user@ellandroad.demon.co.uk) has joined #boycottnovell <schestowitz> So we can conclude from this that Notepad is better than OOo <PetoKraus> sure! <Eruaran> oh yeah ;) <PetoKraus> it has more useful features

---

In conclusion, Microsoft hardly changed its way. The predatory nature of the Beast lives on to this date. ⬆