OFE Press Release - Has ODF finally won?

Released 01-05-2009

OpenForum Europe observes with great interest the long-awaited inclusion of support for ODF within the release of Microsoft's Service Pack 2 for Office 2007. This adoption underlines the growing requirement by both public and private sector for open standards based interoperability based on ODF. It represents a strategic victory for ODF, a victory which we need to consolidate.

Governments across the world, including the UK, have adopted ODF. This number continues to grow as has the depth and range of ODF supporting software. Over 50 ODF supporting word processors, spreadsheets and presentation applications are available - a significant proportion originate in from Europe. OpenForum Europe are actively supporting the ODF Workshop in the Hague on 15th -16th June called at the invitation of the Dutch Government which will focus on full interoperability for ODF implementations.

It is hoped that their support of ODF will represent a substantive move by Microsoft towards ungrudging participation in genuine multi-vendor interoperability. Freely exchangeable document formats are fundamental to the development of open interoperability frameworks which intimately link both public and private users with each other and with their suppliers. Open document formats enable competitive choice to the IT user, encouraging wide ranging innovation. Closed document formats stifle customer choice.

OpenForum Europe will continue to advocate genuinely open solutions and will carefully monitor the impact of ODF and other document format implementations."

Basil Cousins says: “This COULD be an opportunity for Microsoft to prove its critics wrong. We will watch the first user trials of SP2 with great interest - let the public judge.”

Basil Cousins - Director, OpenForum Europe