Microsoft Fails in Implementing ODF

Microsoft has a broken implementation of the Open Document Format (ODF) in Office 2007 that will leave many users thinking that ODF is an inferior format to MS Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt).

http://www.odfalliance.org/blog/index.php/site/microsofts_odf_support_falls_short/

This could be incompetence or it could be malicious, but it is not the first time Microsoft has used these kinds of tactics to fight competition. In fact these are the kinds of practices that have earned Microsoft several anti-trust judgements against them.

Because they are the biggest player in office productivity software, most people use MS Office software and formats. Those people will likely judge the quality of the ODF format based on their experience with it in MS Office. They are not likely to install OpenOffice just to find out if the format or MS Office is to blame for poor performance. Therefore they will simply discount ODF as unfinished and amateur.

This is strikingly similar to what MS did with Java where they created their own Java developer tools which would not work well with the original version of Java from Sun. See the section titled "Microsoft’s Attempts To Extinguish Java" in this report from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems.

http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf