Microsoft Boosts Support for Rival Formats in Office

In a recent news article, Microsoft has announced plans to provide native support for the Open Office file formats in its own office productivity suite.

Open Office is an open source office productivity suite whose development is mostly under the guidance of Sun Microsystems.

Microsoft has made a lot of money off of their own office productivity suite. Over the years, this profit has been used to underwrite Microsoft's attempts to acquire increased share in the markets that Sun traditionally occupies.

I find Open Office to be an excellent office productivity suite. Because of this, I have neither personally used nor purchased a copy of Microsoft Office since 1995. I have used later versions of MS-Office while working for various corporations where that productivity suite is part of the standard, corporate desktop image.

Although MS-Office still enjoys predominance in the marketplace, the list of companies that have switched to Open Office continues to grow. I believe that more and more companies will re-examine their position on MS-Office and its premium pricing as the market of office productivity suites becomes more and more of a commodity.