Microsoft changes its direction

Microsoft recently announced a new version of its Office suite (version 13), and included support for the ODF format. This is big news.

The decision to support ODF does not mean that the open source fanboys have "won".

As I see it, the decision to support ODF means that Microsoft has changed its strategy.

Microsoft became dominant in Windows applications, in part due to the proprietary formats of Microsoft Office and the network effect: everyone wanted Microsoft Office (and nothing else) because everyone that they knew (and with whom they exchanged documents) used Microsoft Office. The proprietary format ensured that one used the true Microsoft Office and not a clone or compatible suite.

Microsoft used that network effect to drive people to Windows (providing a Mac version of Office that was close but not quite the same as the Windows version). Their strategy was to sell licenses for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, and other Microsoft products, all interlocking and using proprietary formats for storage.

And that strategy worked for two decades, from 1990 to 2010.

Several lawsuits and injunctions forced Microsoft to open their formats to external players. Once they did, other office suites gained the ability to read and write files for Office.

With Microsoft including the ODF formats in Office, they are no longer relying on proprietary file formats. Which means that they have some other strategy in mind.

That new strategy remains to be seen. I suspect that it will include their Surface tablets and Windows smartphones. I also expect cloud computing (in the form of Windows Azure) to be part of the strategy too.

The model of selling software on shiny plastic discs has come to an end. With that change comes the end of the desktop model of computing, and the dawn of the tablet model of computing.