“Q: In an InfoWorld interview you gave
earlier today, you noted that the failure of OOXML to achieve
adoption in the first phase of JTC1 voting influenced the timing of
today’s announcement. What effect, if any, did Google’s inclusion
of StarOffice 8 in its Google Pack have on IBM’s decision?“A: None whatsoever. We’ve been
speaking with members of the OpenOffice community for most of the
last 16 to 18 month to see how we could work more closely with that
community. In other words, this is a project that we’ve been moving
towards joining for a very long time. We’ve also been working with
Google and other industry players to see what the greater potential
of this project could be…”