Microsoft always talks like this; there is something distinctly Microsoft about it. It doesn’t quite make sense but it sounds friendly.

If they were really concerned about interoperability, they would a) hire better software engineers to address “backward compatibility issues” (which everyone knows have always existed, even with their proprietary file formats), and b) propose modifications to the existing standard to achieve the “level of functionality” not already present – not create their own “standard” while corrupting the existing standard with a non-standard formula implementation.

The English units predate the metric system. Americans use SI units for scientific uses and English units for everyday life. (And both English and Metric nuts and bolts for cars :-)).

CDMA vs. GSM is an example of the U.S. not mandating one standard over another. Both are in common use, depending on which carrier you choose. My AT&T GSM Quad-Band phone works in most countries, that’s one of the reasons I chose AT&T.

OOXML is not an example of the U.S. versus the world. It is an example of one U.S.-based company trying to hold onto its monopoly. When you consider that the entire OOXML fiasco may have been started by one U.S. state (Massachusetts) mandating ODF for some state documents, I don’t think you can make the claim that the U.S. has chosen OOXML as a standard over ODF. Microsoft may exert more influence over the U.S. government than I would like, but the U.S. government is not alone in that regard.

This is good example. People travelling the globe must choose the right voltage as there is a undesired choose 110 volt (OOXML) and 220V (ODF).

BTW: Americans have always been good in not following standards;, time (12H vs 24 H), metric (kilo meters, miles which resulted in the loss of a satelite), liters and gallons, A4 versus letter, CDMA vs GSM, OOXML (MS is an American Company) vs ODF…..

Choices you make take you down routes, which will lead to more choices in the future. You drive down a road and come to a T-junction; left takes you into a walled estate; limited options follow and the road you enter is also the only exit. Turning right takes you towards a crossroads and turns off that take you to a city, to a highway and to another crossroads.

Choose right and get more choice, choose left and get no choice.

ODF is the document standard that gives the most choices in the future, OOXML is a dead end.

There’s also one standard for the kind of electricity that comes through the walls of American homes; 110 volts, 60 Hertz, AC. It was not always so, but it is now, and it doesn’t seem likely that anyone will ever try to come up with another one.

Of course, what you then go on to do with the letters, and with the electric power that comes through the walls, there’s a huge variety of possibilities. Some have commercial value; some have attribution value.

“Chris Ward created this, but it’s not actually sellable for money as such”. That’s how the world works, sometimes.

If one can see that ODF is a free format without restrictions or obfuscation, one could assume the _choice of software and programs_ would be much much higher than compared to OOXML, which pretty much is MS Office only…

Suppose I stick a gun in your face and give you a choice. You can either choose give me all your money, or you can choose to get shot in the face. At this point in time you have two options that you didn’t have before. I’ve given you more choices. Therefore, or so some people would have us believe, I’ve done you a favour.

So either we accept that holding people up at gunpoint is a good thing, or we need to concede that having more choices is not always a good thing.

OOXML should be eliminated from consideration because it is a bad choice, a restrictive liability. People who chose OOXML are stuck with Microsoft Office and Windows, worst of class software that are expensive, violate your privacy and perform poorly. People who go with ODF can chose from many better Office suites that work on every OS and many different hardware platforms. That’s because ODF is a real standard that has many functioning implementation. One day, even Microsoft may use it correctly but I would not hold my breath. OOXML will only be considered by the willfully ignorant, the corrupt and those who have exploited them for more than a decade.