“If you’re reading this blog entry, you’ve probably been
following the battle between ODF and OOXML. If so, you may be
thinking of that conflict as a classic standards war, but in fact,
it goes much deeper than that label would suggest. What is
happening between the proponents of ODF and OOXML is only a
skirmish in a bigger battle that involves a fundamental reordering
of forces, ideologies, stakeholders, and economics at the interface
of society and information technology.“Today, open source software is challenging proprietary models,
hundreds of millions of people in emerging societies are choosing
their first computer platforms from a range of alternatives, major
vendors are converting from product to service strategies, and
software as a service is finally coming into its own–to mention
only a few of the many forces that are transforming the realities
that ruled the IT marketplace for decades…”