Gray Matter : Clearing up a few matters with respect to ODF and SP2

Required reading if you care about ODF, Open XML, and standards – the closing paragraphs:

As I have stated on my blog earlier, I WANT a good ODF implementation in Office to improve the satisfaction level of those interested in interoperability. I am very much rooting for a positive outcome to this discussion. We have a commitment to doing a high quality job just as we do with other aspects of our products.  We will certainly focus on the demands of our customers for quality and interoperability and will continue to engage with other vendors in the years to come to (a) improve the spec and (b) improve the Interop between implementations of the spec.

To date, I have not fielded a call or request from a developer seeking to build a solution in Office with ODF. By contrast I see many requests of developers who wish to build Office solutions that include PDF. (Open XML is quite healthy as well, but I’ll leave that part out for a bit so as to not compare the two formats.) I assign no positive or negative value in the level ODF adoption that I see when dealing with developers; if they use it, our product can write the format; if ODF is a means to improving their solution, then I will gladly provide my best effort toward ensuring that Office-based solution is top quality. Either way I am hopeful that our product can be successful in supporting whatever use people seek to achieve with it.

Gray Matter : Clearing up a few matters with respect to ODF and SP2