The June 28, 2007, issue of the ODF Alliance Newsletter just went live in PDF.
Paints a picture of powerful momentum for the universal document format and gives links to some interesting bedside reading on the weaknesses of ODF's nemesis, OOXML.
ODF Alliance membership passed 300 in recent months, not 9 months from the start of the lobbying and communications group. An analysis of the mix would indicate the proportion of ICT vendors, professional services providers, software development groups and end user agencies and organizations.
These are people with a view toward supporting ODF in software or establishing ODF policies or moving forward on migration. They may be entities who are already using OpenOffice.org -- and thereby ODF -- already. They are united by a confidence in a singular idea: common sense will prevail in the electronic document standards fight.
There are 50 countries represented in the list (and all continents but Antarctica).
...their own.
The excellent John Markoff in The New York Times wrote yesterday about Google's Eric Schmidt going on the Apple Computer Board of Directors and made no subtlety of the Silicon Valley vs. Redmond theme.
Given the recent enterprise product announcements from Google and the move to Intel chips by Mac which support Windows as well as OS X, the squeeze is being applied overtly on the Monopolist from the two most significant & influential desktop computing companies. (This is really what Steve Ballmer was throwing chairs about back when Google was hiring the talented Microsoft doers: it was likely the dull Ballmer's first recognition that competitors were deliberately acting to both promote their own plans while interfering with his ability to operate.)
I add the world's attack via ODF on Microsoft's document file formats as a significant third factor which is presently increasing the blood pressure in Redmond and will be taking the state, municipal and key federal accounts in all countries away.
Next, we may be able to rely upon an attack on MrSofty stock from the more clueful sectors of Private Equity. The FT was laughably floating the Microsoft LBO meme last week, which to me indicates not only that greed is at an apex in Greenwich, Connecticut, but that hedge funds are running out of roadkill. The smart money will see that a) Microsoft is in a different competitive environment now, one pitted directly against them -- enlivened by the personal animus of people who's careers were adversely affected by Bill Gates' psychopathic anti-competitive business lust (or those from Bell Labs or Stanford who feel a personal responsibility to take computing back from a dishonest company); and b) customers are quite fed up with the status quo, and they have alternatives emerging.
In addition, Microsoft can't seem to help itself: Vista requires now more hardware, when the rest of the world is calling for less. And their new file format -- MSECMAXML -- is predicated on more and deeper ties (as in illegal monoplistic Tying) to Microsoft-only applications and platforms than ever before rather than less. One would be accurate to say that Microsoft is swimming against the current.
The OpenDocument Format ("ODF") was approved for adoption (PDF) as a standard by the International Standards Organization ("ISO"). The six-month balloting period for ISO member organizations ended May 1st with the affirmative vote.
This means ODF, and ODF-capable software tools for the desktop (including OpenOffice, StarOffice, Lotus Workplace, KOffice and other Open Source & Free as well as commercial office suites), are likely to experience accelerated adoption this year in the government sectors of many countries, where ISO ratification is a precondition or strong requirement for procurement.
Said Marino Marcich, Executive Director of the ODF Alliance,
"[We intend] to build on this successful vote by working with governments around the world to adopt the OpenDocument Format. We believe access to public records and essential services should never be restricted to users of a particular brand of software or computer platform."
I place the ODF Alliance somewhere between a snowball and a firestorm. The OpenDocument Format Alliance, which formed last month with approximately 35 members now has over 130 members.
ODF adopters who are not on this list but who might be politely encouraged to sign up include:
Any other organizations who support the goals of the Alliance -- to help encourage governments to recognize the benefits of open-standard formats for creating and accessing office documents -- should duly feel free to join up.
Sam Hiser
"Achieving Openness: a closer look at ODF & OOXML" | (Jun 2007)
"Interoperability: will the real universal file format please stand up?" | Novatica UPGRADE (Dec 2006)
"What is OpenDocument?" | O'Reilly ONLamp (Jul 2006)
"ODF & Innovation Theory" | PlexNex (Oct 2006)
Articles are archived at Hiser Verlag.
Search PlexNex
Recent Comments