PC Pro is running a priceless article on how Microsoft people are still scratching their heads and picking up their jaws from the floor trying to recover from the Massachusetts decision. It is too funny. Check out this quote:
Jones condemns the State’s decision as being based on ‘no thorough research’ as the first beta of the new productivity suite will not be out for a another couple of months. ‘ I can’t imagine that they would have made this decision as it actually provides the easiest path of moving from proprietary binary formats into open XML formats,’ he writes.
Wow… According to Microsoft it is unbelievably stupid for people to actually choose an open, independently developed format, which was built from the ground up to be multi-platform, accessible document format. After all Microsoft already decided to benevolently throw a half assed “open standard” at the public.
But see, I do not believe for a second that MS would actually do something that could actually allow interoperability. No, they have to much at stake here. They will do anything to lock you in. And here is how they will do this:
MS will provide an open XML based document format – hey why not. It will shut up allot of people. It will be totally open, and nice. But, there is going to be a catch. The new open XML based format will be totally incompatible with doc and wordML formats. Converting documents will fuck up subtle details such as layout, image placement, margins and tables.
They will make it a nightmare to convert doc or wordML document into this open format, while making it very easy to do it the other way. Hence, despite the availability of the open standard people will still use standard office formats.
This is why we are much better off with the OASIS format.
