[odf-discuss] Mass may endorse OXML.

[Chris Puttick]

Unfortunately, if ease of migration of formats is their reasoning then
they have been misinformed. It is not the format that is the key but
the software. If they think it is easier and cheaper to go with
Microsoft because they have Microsoft then they are correct; they are
already locked in. The new format is irrelevant, it is the legacy
format and legacy systems that is the problem. *Any* cost incurred in
moving to a more open format is the cost of exit of the previous
decisions, part of the TCO cycle that needs to come to an end, not
part of the TCO cycle of the new open systems.

Of course Mass. implementing MS products as part of this policy would
be legally challengeable - their policy refers to Ecma OOXML which is
proveably not supported by MS Office 2k7 (and presumably not the
plugins for MS Office 2k3).

Chris P

On 03/07/07, marbux <marbux at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 7/3/07, Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera at zmsl.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > This is old news, but I haven't seen any posts on-list (it's been quiet
> > lately, I know). Massachusetts may endorse Microsoft's OOXML.
> >
> >
> http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070702101415578
> >
> > Any takes on this?
> >
> > Personally I think that two overlapping standards will be harmful to
> > competition and I believe that OOXML is much more difficult to implement
> > than ODF. I don't really have anything to say that everyone on this list
> > doesn't know already.
> >
> >
> It's actualy easier for Massachusetts to implement MOOXML than ODF because
> they are already overwhelmingly using MS Office and have a huge silo of
> legacy documents in Microsoft formats. So it's a painless migration to
> MOOXML, no need to rewrite business process scripts, etc. The pain comes
> later from the vendor lock-in. With ODF, on the other hand, can't be
> integrated with  Microsoft-bound business processes because of the
> interoperability barrier and poor fidelity conversions. And ripping out and
> replacing not only MS Office but all of the business process scripts would
> be ruinously expensive.
>
> As one of the IBM SOA experts said:
>
> "Because most companies have a significant investment in their legacy
> infrastructure, management is typically not open to ripping out and
> replacing legacy systems, regardless of the level of shortcomings evident in
> the infrastructure. Rewriting or significantly modifying large portions of a
> legacy environment is neither practical nor realistically accomplishable in
> a reasonable time frame." (Italics added.)
> <http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-soa-adaptleg/>.
>
> Too bad the IBM office productivity software execs never got that memo. Rip
> out and replace is the only option they've given the enterprise market for
> ODF implementation, as with the ill-considered legislation that failed in
> five states so far. :-)
>
> My guess is that we are going to see a lot of the ODF adoption decisions
> being revised to take the Massachusetts approach. As I've been saying, ODF
> has won a lot of government adoption decisions but darned few
> implementations. Governments have largely been awaiting the interoperability
> tools needed to escape Microsoft's lock-in but the tools have not been
> forthcoming. And won't be given current attitudes toward interoperability on
> the ODF TC at OASIS.
>
>
>
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>
>


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