Last month the UK government proposed that they will switch from using the Microsoft Office to an Open-Source solutions for its official documents because UK government believes that they can cut costs by doing this way. Microsoft is opposing this proposal related to sharing and collaborating with government documents.
Microsoft replied to the proposal in a post from its UK office, stating that the government is leaving out the Open XML format(OOXML). "We believe this will cause problems for citizens and businesses who use office suites which don’t support ODF, including many people who do not use a recent version of Microsoft Office or, for example, Pages on iOS and even Google Docs." Microsoft news.
"Microsoft Office has supported ODF since 2007, but adoption of OOXML has been more widespread amongst other products than ODF, Microsoft Office has supported ODF since 2007, but adoption of OOXML has been more widespread amongst other products than ODF. This move has the potential to impact businesses selling to government, who may be forced to comply. It also sets a worrying precedent because government is, in effect, refusing to support another internationally recognised open standard and may do so for other similar popular standards in the future, potentially impacting anyone who wishes to sell to Government." Microsoft news.
The company also added that a change to support ODF can increase the cost and may cause the dissatisfaction among the citizens and business. The Standards Hub is currently accepting opinions from the public on the proposal on its website until Feb. 26.
Source: NeoWin
Microsoft replied to the proposal in a post from its UK office, stating that the government is leaving out the Open XML format(OOXML). "We believe this will cause problems for citizens and businesses who use office suites which don’t support ODF, including many people who do not use a recent version of Microsoft Office or, for example, Pages on iOS and even Google Docs." Microsoft news.
"Microsoft Office has supported ODF since 2007, but adoption of OOXML has been more widespread amongst other products than ODF, Microsoft Office has supported ODF since 2007, but adoption of OOXML has been more widespread amongst other products than ODF. This move has the potential to impact businesses selling to government, who may be forced to comply. It also sets a worrying precedent because government is, in effect, refusing to support another internationally recognised open standard and may do so for other similar popular standards in the future, potentially impacting anyone who wishes to sell to Government." Microsoft news.
The company also added that a change to support ODF can increase the cost and may cause the dissatisfaction among the citizens and business. The Standards Hub is currently accepting opinions from the public on the proposal on its website until Feb. 26.
Source: NeoWin
