Re: Libre/Open Office?
"Except that you don't need to save documents in Microsoft proprietary formats these days. Recent versions of Microsoft Office can open ODF files,..."
"....and ODF becomes the defacto Office suite file format ;)"
Yes but that ain't gonna happen. The vast majority of corporate desktops and notebooks are using MS Office and save in an MS format by default. Why would Microsoft change the default formats of Office to benefit potential rivals? I suspect they will continue to warn their users that "this document may contain features that are not compatible with this format", which will help maintain the status quo.
This means that LO has to try to work with native MS Office formats and Microsoft are clearly going to do there best to make that as difficult as possible.
Things were much simpler when Word and Excel were the underdogs to Wordperfect and Lotus 123. Now, it is probably nearly impossible to provide a truly compatible alternative to MS Office, especially where complex documents using macros are involved. Added to this, Microsoft are not so stupid as to ignore the threat to MS Office from Libre Office (and by implication, to the Windows desktop from Linux) and will likely continue to move the goalposts. I like Libre Office and it seems to be the closest competitor to MS Office but I can't see it displacing the incumbent unless Microsoft completely miss the point.