11.14.07
ODF Becomes a Reality in South Africa, IBM Pushes on With ODF Apps
South Africa’s embrace of ODF is not news, but progress is clearly being made.
A week before the workshop the South African government became the latest country in the world to adopt the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as a government standard for information exchange.
IBM makes progress as well. It has just released another beta of Symphony, which is built upon open standards (ODF).
So far, Symphony is only available in English, but Beta 3, which is due by the end of the year, will include support for 23 languages, Rhodin said. “We’re pretty serious about this,” he said.
There is also a brand-new commercial for Symphony (not that we try to advertise anything).
A ‘cash cow’ turned into a vending machine.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.