Microsoft Office - pros and cons (was: Re: [Ti] OpenOffice on Mac)

[Ardeshir Mehta]

On 22-Nov-05, at 1:50 AM, Chris Olson wrote:

>> What about incentive? Open standards means, does it not, that  
>> developers don't have a financial incentive to come up with  
>> something better and better as time goes by ... yes?
>>
>
> Open standards means no such thing.  Open standards means the  
> specifications for a specific file format, etc., are open and  
> published and accepted by a standards organization such as ISO.   
> This does not mean it's free and/or open source.  It means that any  
> software developer has access to the published specification to  
> build applications that adhere to the standard.  An example is  
> MPEG-4, which an internationally recognized open ISO standard.
>
> Open standards foster competition for the best implementation of  
> the standard.  The open-standards approach means that the standard  
> has many more people who scrutinize one another's work than is  
> possible from a single vendor, resulting in a more stable - and  
> ultimately more satisfactory - result.  Obviously, open standards  
> help reduce the possibility that a single vendor could hold  
> customers hostage, as has been the case with Microsoft's Office  
> file formats in the past.

Ah, yes. My mistake.

Cheers.