Fire and Motion: What OpenXML Means to IBM and Lotus Notes
Category IBM/Lotus
From InfoQ: Fire and Motion: What OpenXML Means to IBM and Lotus Notes
Why is IBM working so hard to prevent OpenXML from becoming an ISO standard?
One possible explanation is that they bet the farm on ODF. We are not talking about OpenOffice, as free/open source applications are not exactly moneymakers. No, the application that IBM is betting on is the venerable Lotus Notes.
According to John Fontana of Network World, "Hannover, the first public beta of Notes, scheduled to ship this fall, will include a text editor, a spreadsheet editor and a presentation graphics editor that support the XML-based ODF standard".
More importantly, the other formats it will support include the current version of Microsoft Office and previous versions of OpenOffice. What is not included is the OpenXML format, which is understandable considering this article was written back in May.
Reading this article, I think I now understand what the productivity editors could mean to Lotus Notes when compared to Microsoft Office. Prior to this, I thought it was "cool" that you would be able to have an Office-like capability without leaving the Notes client. But I never really thought of it as a credible challenge to the Microsoft Office monopoly. As pointed out in the article, there is a fine line between supporting every new twist a vendor throws at you vs. concentrating on new features. But with the grassroots rumblings related to governments adopting ODF standards, having Notes out there as a platform that supports all those offerings out of the box is a compelling sales point.
Do I think that Microsoft Office is going to roll over and die in the face of ODF? No. The Word format is not a standard by any stretch, but that hasn't stopped it from cornering the market. Pure software vendor inertia will cause OpenXML to continue along wherever Microsoft wants to take it. But should early ODF adoption continue to grow, there *will* be a tipping point in the future. I'd much prefer see Notes positioned to take advantage of that choice right now, rather than try and play catch-up later...
Thoughts?
From InfoQ: Fire and Motion: What OpenXML Means to IBM and Lotus Notes
Why is IBM working so hard to prevent OpenXML from becoming an ISO standard?
One possible explanation is that they bet the farm on ODF. We are not talking about OpenOffice, as free/open source applications are not exactly moneymakers. No, the application that IBM is betting on is the venerable Lotus Notes.
According to John Fontana of Network World, "Hannover, the first public beta of Notes, scheduled to ship this fall, will include a text editor, a spreadsheet editor and a presentation graphics editor that support the XML-based ODF standard".
More importantly, the other formats it will support include the current version of Microsoft Office and previous versions of OpenOffice. What is not included is the OpenXML format, which is understandable considering this article was written back in May.
Reading this article, I think I now understand what the productivity editors could mean to Lotus Notes when compared to Microsoft Office. Prior to this, I thought it was "cool" that you would be able to have an Office-like capability without leaving the Notes client. But I never really thought of it as a credible challenge to the Microsoft Office monopoly. As pointed out in the article, there is a fine line between supporting every new twist a vendor throws at you vs. concentrating on new features. But with the grassroots rumblings related to governments adopting ODF standards, having Notes out there as a platform that supports all those offerings out of the box is a compelling sales point.
Do I think that Microsoft Office is going to roll over and die in the face of ODF? No. The Word format is not a standard by any stretch, but that hasn't stopped it from cornering the market. Pure software vendor inertia will cause OpenXML to continue along wherever Microsoft wants to take it. But should early ODF adoption continue to grow, there *will* be a tipping point in the future. I'd much prefer see Notes positioned to take advantage of that choice right now, rather than try and play catch-up later...
Thoughts?
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