{"id":948,"date":"2010-04-21T13:53:14","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T17:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2d823b65bb.nxcli.io\/?p=948"},"modified":"2010-05-01T19:19:06","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T23:19:06","slug":"oracle-odf-plugin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/oracle-odf-plugin.html","title":{"rendered":"Why I like Oracle’s $90 ODF Plugin"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been a flurry of news articles<\/a> about Oracle’s price change on their (formerly Sun’s) ODF Plugin for MS Office.\u00a0 What was previously free (as in beer), at least for individual use, is now sold for $90 and with a minimum quantity of 100.\u00a0 The broad coverage (ZDNet, BusinessWeek, CNET,\u00a0 NBC, IDG, etc.)\u00a0 of this minor story suggests someone was shopping this story around.\u00a0 I wonder who?<\/p>\n

At the risk of pouring oil on the fire, let me say that I think this is an exciting development for ODF.\u00a0 We have three solutions for providing ODF support in MS Office:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Oracle’s Plugin<\/li>\n
  2. CleverAge Add-in<\/li>\n
  3. Microsoft’s native ODF support<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These three solutions have always varied in terms of quality of conversion, versions of MS Office supported, versions of ODF supported, level of integration into MS Office, etc.\u00a0 And now they vary based on price.\u00a0 This is a good thing.\u00a0 It is called “competition”.\u00a0 I like it.<\/p>\n

    Although I personally think that Oracle has set the price too high, I realize that we have a market to sort these things out.\u00a0 If they act rationally (and I assume they will) they’ll charge an amount that maximizes their return.\u00a0 If they are not already at a profit-maximizing price point, they will adjust.\u00a0 That is how prices are set in a free market. \u00a0 But if Oracle can really get $90 per copy, with a minimum quantity of 100, then all the power to them.\u00a0 I just hope that some of that money gets plowed back into their development of this and other ODF-related tools.\u00a0 That is how we grow stronger and more powerful ODF tools.\u00a0 Someone needs the impetus to make that investment.\u00a0 If the profit motive drives investment in ODF,\u00a0 then Praise be to Mammon!\u00a0 And remember, if Oracle’s Plugin gets more people to use ODF, then that is a larger audience for your open source ODF tool.\u00a0 This is a good thing.\u00a0 The important thing is we’re growing the number of people using ODF.<\/p>\n

    We should want companies to invest in ODF tools.\u00a0 We should want the demand for ODF to be such that ODF-based goods and services have value, can be sold based on that value, and that there is competition again in the market, something we have not seen in this area in many years.<\/p>\n

    2009-04-23 — Some further thoughts<\/p>\n

    It is probably worth reflecting why the Sun Plugin was necessary in the first place.\u00a0 If Microsoft Office supported ODF fully, in a well-integrated and interperable fashion, then surely no ODF Plugin would be necessary. You would gain your ODF support simply by purchasing your MS Office license.\u00a0 In effect, you are already paying for ODF support (along with all other Office features) when you purchase MS Office. If you are buying Oracle’s $90 Plugin, remember that you are essentially paying for ODF support twice: once to Microsoft and once to Oracle.<\/p>\n

    If I were paying twice for the same feature, I’d be upset as well.\u00a0 But is the solution really for Oracle to continue subsidizing MS Office users by giving away their Plugin for free?\u00a0 Or maybe Microsoft customers should ask their vendor why their Office ODF support is not adequate?\u00a0 Ideally there would be no need for a Plugin because the out-of-the-box ODF support would meet customer requirements.\u00a0 I’m sure Microsoft, like any other vendor, would value such feedback from their customers.\u00a0\u00a0 But to me it seems perverse to blame Oracle for no longer subsidizing their competitor’s product.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There has been a flurry of news articles about Oracle’s price change on their (formerly Sun’s) ODF Plugin for MS Office.\u00a0 What was previously free (as in beer), at least for individual use, is now sold for $90 and with a minimum quantity of 100.\u00a0 The broad coverage (ZDNet, BusinessWeek, CNET,\u00a0 NBC, IDG, etc.)\u00a0 of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-odf","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":951,"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions\/951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}