As they did in the past with Java and HTML (just to cite two cases), Microsoft has now invested at least 12 months of work to try to fragment the ODF in the IT market: A shame.I swear I was ready to publish this week a post praising Microsoft for finally released SP2 of Office 2007 with native support for ODF, but unfortunately after the initial tests of various users, what we see is an absurd attempt to mislead consumers (who payed for the software) and fragment ODF in the IT industry.
When I use the word fragment, I mean the known tactic of using ‘creativity’ during the implementation of a standard to make the implementation only compatible with your software (people that had seen sites that only work in Internet Explorer already know what I’m talking about). Looking from outside, the documents appear identical but a most consistent inside look demonstrate that they are completely different, thus fragmenting the uniformity expected as a consequence of a standard adoption.