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Is There Any Future For The Open Document Format?By Gavin Peters |
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For those people out there who have not heard of the Open Document format (ODF), please allow me to try and explain it in layman's terms. The ODF is an attempt to produce an Open format that all office documents could save to, a universal standard that all office packages can use. If this is successful you should be able to write a document with one word processing package, open it up with a different package and be able to make changes and save it to the same format. Does this sound like a great idea? It does to me. Why, because it means that you are not locked in to any one company's product, at the moment if you save to a .doc format you need Microsoft Word to read your document and make any changes to it. However, what happens if you have not got access to a computer running Microsoft Word, you have a problem.
The OASIS organisation is behind this project, they are a non-profit standards body that is made up of a consortium of businesses and these include companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Novell. This new format is based on the XML format developed by OpenOffice.org, you would not only be able to save word type documents but also spreadsheets, presentations, etc. This new format would also be open which means it is free for any company to use and develop.
This all sounds great, so where is the problem you ask? The main problem is Microsoft, as nearly all businesses use Microsoft Office and Microsoft have no plans to support this new open format, will it ever really get off the ground. I must say that in some way you can't blame them, they have spent vast sums of money developing their formats which include .doc, .ppt and .xls, they have become the business standard for office formats worldwide. These formats have been used and trusted by businesses for many years, they are capable of supporting documents with complex formatting and there is good backward compatibility with older versions of Microsoft Office.
The new version of Microsoft Office supports a new format called OpenXML and this will become the new default format in Office 2007. This new format although developed by Microsoft is an open standard too. How open this new format really is remains to be seen, as Microsoft are not known for sharing their code. Also there is full support in the new Office 2007 for their old .doc, .ppt, and xls formats. So you have all the benefits of the new improved OpenXML formats and be able to access all your older documents, the best of both worlds.
There are many office software packages on the market but one that is making waves at the moment is OpenOffice.org. This office suite is available for free but you have to ask yourself the question, why are companies not using an office package that is free, surely it would save businesses a lot of money. There are probably several answers to that question but two that spring to mind: there is a lot of support out there for Microsoft products and they have a proven track record. The other is that everybody is trained to use Microsoft Office, kids use it at school and become very adept at using it, and this is a skill that they have taken into the workplace. If you then start using different office software, you have then got a problem and the huge costs of re-training to contend with.
The decision to change to the new ODF format by the state of Massachusetts has caused a big stir in the US. It has also highlighted a few problems including the problem of re-training, the cost of installing new office software and the problems of interacting with all the businesses and services that work along side the state of Massachusetts. I find it strange that two or three other states are now considering using the ODF format after all the problems that they have had in Massachusetts.
In conclusion, I cannot see why we need two standards, my personal feeling is that Microsoft's OpenXML standard will be the winner. The reason for this is simple, most people use Microsoft Office and at the moment unless that changes OpenXML will be the new format that will take over from the old .doc, ppt and xls formats as Office 2007 becomes more popular. The ODF format seems like a nice idea but in reality I believe that it will never get off the ground. |
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About the Author |
| http://www.linuxlifestyle.com
Linux Life Style is the fast and easy way to get to grips with this great operating system. My tutorials will show you in easy steps, with screen shots how simple Linux really is to use. |
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