“ODF Will Prevail”
PCWorld reports on the good year ODF had in 2008. Competing against Microsoft’s MSOOXML format, ODF (OpenDocument Format) seems to be extending its lead:
ODF has now been approved as a technology standard for document exchange in 16 countries, including Brazil, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Russia, and Germany, according to the report. In the Netherlands, government agencies must select ODF-supported products in technology purchases of €50,000 (US$69,920) or more, and in Brazil ODF also has been mandated for use in government agencies.
ODF Alliance Managing Director Marino Marcich also points out the wide range of applications that now support the ODF file type.
ODF also gained more support among word-processing applications from major technology vendors, Marcich said. Google Docs, Adobe Buzzword and OpenOffice.org’s desktop and portable applications all now support ODF as a file format.
With ODF a requirement for some governments concerned about transparency in their digital work processes, and a large and growing catalog of applications that can produce and consume ODF files, it’s becoming ever clearer the benefits of using open standards in the digital world: choice, price and flexibility are all getting better for software users.