I'm neither an experienced analyst nor a power user of office applications. I write this merely to speak my thoughts up about the recent uproar around this topic and probably let my friends know about this as well. I haven't read really much about the details either.
Massachusetts has somewhat decided to abandon Microsoft Office and switch to open-source software, OpenOffice.org for its support for OpenDocument formats (ODF):
The OpenDocument format (ODF), short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is an open document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents such as text documents (including memos, reports, and books), spreadsheets, charts, and presentations. This standard was developed by the OASIS industry consortium, based upon the XML-based file format originally created by OpenOffice.org. The standard was publicly developed by a variety of organizations, is publicly accessible, and can be implemented by anyone without restriction. The OpenDocument format is intended to provide an open alternative to proprietary document formats including the popular DOC, XLS, and PPT formats used by Microsoft Office, as well as Microsoft Office Open XML format (this latter format has various licensing requirements that prevent some competitors from using it). Organizations and individuals that store their data in an open format such as OpenDocument avoid being locked in to a single software vendor, leaving them free to switch software if their current vendor goes out of business, raises their prices, changes their software, or changes their licensing terms to something less favorable. OpenDocument is the only standard for editable office documents that has been vetted by an independent recognized standards body, has been implemented by multiple vendors, and can be implemented by any supplier (including proprietary software vendors and developers using the GNU GPL). -- Wikipedia
Alongside Massachusetts is Europe Union (EU). I read that Massachusetts' migration proposal was loosely based on EU's anyway. The migration sure is going to cost more, regardless of OpenOffice.org being free, than upgrading to the newer version of Microsoft Office--which is what they had been using for over a decade, but think about how newer versions of Microsoft Office applications are not really capable of opening documents of earlier versions: governments keep documents for a very long time, if not forever, as they contain essential records which will still be used a lot even in the future. With XML-based formats and open-source software, anyone can make a filter for the documents. That alone is a reason enough for us to migrate to that standard.
You're probably wondering why they chose OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office. That's probably because Microsoft simply said, "maybe someday," regarding to whether they will support ODF and as said in Wikipedia: Microsoft Office Open XML, despite being named so, has various licensing requirements that prevent some competiors from using it.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1829355,00.aspGovernments are not supposed to store their data in a form with potential licensing encumbrances. Even if the license grants exceptions for government use, doing so causes Network Effects (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect), which give the format an unfair market advantage over its rivals. Since Microsoft has already been proven to possess monopoly power, this is doubly undesirable.
On the same note, this might not be visible to these people but we who live in this third world including Indonesia find Microsoft Office quite expensive, regardless of its worth. We are apparently used to buy pirated copies that we all find it common that everyone here is able to have Microsoft Office 2003 Professional installed in his computer--you can get a copy of it for about $ 2 US anywhere in the city. Alongside the recent increase of 100% on fuel rates, continual decrease on ID Rupiah's value against US Dollar's, and the low salary rates, OpenOffice.org being FREE and open-source is apparently a perfect solution for us all, except not many of us know what that is, or never heard of it, or/and not sure about its quality--I really think the phrase "Microsoft Office's alternative" is a tad degrading for OpenOffice.org as it is mature, complete, easy-to-use, sophisticated, and working. Nonetheless, they should do some campaign in Indonesia.
Corel WordPerfect apparently has been there for a long time and has its niche as a number one Microsoft Office alternative. But it seems to be content with it and is not striving at all to compete with Microsoft Office itself. Moreover: regardless of its looks, the way it works looks really primitive and quite a trivial program I should say. How is it going to be highly compatible with Microsoft Office file formats if it doesn't even filter its own file formats properly. As I said, I'm not a power user in this department, but I do have to write many things, for school mostly. I have tried both Corel WordPerfect and OpenOffice.org, and so far, I've been much more comfortable with the latter program. WordPerfect gave me enough problems I ended up uninstalling it in rage.
I like OpenOffice.org 2 much more than version 1. It's almost like an entirely different thing. Seriously, it loads much faster than version 1, looks elegant, and has really nice and smart features that once you use them you'll be content and wouldn't possibly migrate to any other programs without those features!
The flow didn't give me the opportunity to tell about this earlier so, here I want to give an example of why ODF is cool: since you are able to create your own filter for ODF (or use premade API's, which should now be everywhere on the net), you can directly, say, parse an entire essay on OpenDocument Text (ODT) to something immediately readable by web browsers! I'm interested in implementing that on my school project myself.
As my Internet connection has been showing signs of improvement: I can upload a 10MB file without a single disconnection--usually due to time-outs, I put two BGM's for this blog! The first one is Louise Vertigo's Blue Lagoon and the second one is Sarah Brightman's La Mer--live performance from One Night in Eden. At any rate, I will probably write something later--I don't feel like writing much at the moment.
