@Michael C
Have you taken a chance to look at the documentation for Microsoft's formats? I have. I have even tried to write things that can parse them. As have people far smarter than I. The documentation is a mess. An ABSOLUTE MESS. Worse yet, it's incomplete!
The only thing that can properly talk to Microsoft Office file formats is Microsoft Office. This is true quite simply because nobody has enough documentation from Microsoft (bullsh** ISO standard or no) to actually reproduce the bloody things.
The “time saving business features” are needed by a very small fraction of its user base. Representatively, of the 1500 people in various organisations that I am responsible for, only three actually require Microsoft Office to get their jobs done versus the competition. (All three of them do things in Excel that competitors can’t do.) Everyone else is perfectly fine with Libre Office (formerly OOo) or even Google Apps!
That isn’t to promote those products; of the 1500 individuals there are only about 50 who have converted away from Office. The reason? FILE FORMATS. Whilst they are perfectly willing to use alternate programs, their customers aren’t willing to move towards an open standard such as ODF. This means having to stick with Microsoft Office “because that’s what everyone else uses.” Microsoft’s extant largesse ensures Microsoft’s continued largesse!
If you truly have bought into the steaming turd that is Microsoft’s “open standard office format,” and honestly believe that the documentation provided the ISO was complete enough to create competing implementations then we have absolutely nothing more to talk about.
You and I can continue this conversation at that distant, rainbow-filled future time when Microsoft sits down at the table with the Open Source community, Google, IBM and all other competitors and champions a truly open format that encompasses all features from all parties at the table. It must have no licensing, no patent encumbrances and be documented so thoroughly that all parties at the table can read and write to this file format seamlessly. At the moment, the /ONLY/ contender is ODF…and ODF doesn’t quite cover all of the functions that the various platforms are capable of.
Until that shining day upon whence Microsoft agrees to compete with people in the Office Productivity arena based upon features, experience, integration and Overall Better Designed Application, we simply will never be capable of agreeing on this topic.
That isn’t to say Microsoft Office isn’t a good product. It is a GREAT product. There are however many other adequate-to-very-good products out there. More importantly they don’t cost nearly as much. These products sadly cannot compete in the same arena not because of quality, but because Microsoft doesn’t pay in the open file format playground.
Ta!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
