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What Web business systems really need are advanced desktop editors capable of producing business process rich compound documents in the language of the Web: HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript........

Marbux nails it again in the comments section of this obscure review. In particular, he sites Shah, Rajiv C. and Kesan, Jay P., Lost in Translation: Interoperability Issues for Open Standards - ODF and OOXML as Examples (September 2008), Link to paper on SSRN (compatibility fidelity comparisons of ODF implementations testing only a very small set of word processing features). "...Switching documents, I go through similar travails with the published ODF 1.1 specification, using both the PDF and ODT versions. Bottom line: I can't get either document into WordPerfect X3 or X4 using any rich text format. So I convert the document to plain text using Symphony and get my work done. That is the real state of ODF interoperability. There is no such thing. But that does not stop the vested interests from claiming that there is. E.g.:"

Glynn Moody, who is quoted in the article, obviously does not understand what was involved in Massachusetts. Sam Hiser, also quoted, was deeply and personally involved. OOXML wasn't even on the horizon then. Microsoft Office 2003 wrote to a flat XML format that was irrelevant in any event. What Massachusetts wanted --- and deserved from the ODF community --- was an ability to integrate OpenOffice.org with business processes that were already thoroughly bound to Microsoft Office. The problem was in fact solved by the OpenDocument Foundation's ODF plug-ins for Microsoft Office, but the project had to be ditched because Sun would neither adapt OOo nor allow ODF to be adapted for the purpose. Gary Edwards and I wrote an in-depth and heavily-referenced article on why ODF failed in Massachusetts. http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/072307-opendocuments-grounded.html (.) Those who do not comprehend that integration of data created by end point solutions and stored in legacy data silos is a fundamental requirement in service oriented architectures will never comprehend why interoperability is so vitally important. They wind up being unwitting advocates of incredibly expensive rip out and replace solutions. Good luck, particularly in the current economic climate. The wonderment is why anyone believes that Microsoft Office can be toppled by ODF from its monopoly position without ultra-high fidelity interoperability with Microsoft Office. Too much "what works well enough for me works well enough for anyone" mindset, I suspect.

This article compliments the previous publication, "The better Office Alternative - Softmaker Office". Good stuff! Excerpt: "It's the question that vexes free open source software advocates and commercial competitors around the globe: Why is Microsoft Office so difficult to dislodge from its perch atop the IT heap? Is it the exclusive bundling deals? The deep Software Assurance entrenchment? Steve Ballmer's backroom deal with the devil?" "The answer, of course, is none of the above (though some evidence of a Microsoft-Hell alliance exists). Rather, it's the Office ecosystem -- the vast library of third-party add-ons and vertical solutions built (with copious encouragement from Microsoft) on Office's extensive programmatic model -- that makes Microsoft's suite so hard to kill."

What an amazing conversation. It's true that ODF was NOT designed to be compatible with MSOffice and the legacy binary format. That's not to say there were not considerable efforts within the OASIS Open Office XML TC (ODF) pushing for compatibility. But Sun successfully held off these efforts, insisting that ODF was not designed to be compatible with MSOffice or the MSOffice binaries. Many asked the obvious question, "How are end users supposed to convert their information (billions of legacy "in-process" binary documents) to ODF if ODF is not designed for that conversion?" Stellent, represented by Phil Boutros, and Corel, represented by Paul Langille and Tom Magliery, were particularly obsessed with this problem. Without "compatibility", how were end users supposed to convert their documents? Needless to say, Sun prevailed. ODF is 100% perfectly compatible with OpenOffice/StarOffice, by design. It is not compatible with the billions of "in-process" compound business documents essential to world trade, commerce and information exchange. What a shame, ~ge~