Monday, June 1st, 2009

ODF adoption continues – has it ‘crossed the chasm’?


There’s a certain point in any technology’s adoption that you step back and think to yourself “there’s no going back now”. It’s then that you realize the technology has “crossed the chasm” and whether some would wish it away or whether early adopters start testing a new “next generation” that technology will still be here to stay. I **think** ODF is there now. When you look at the government adoption levels it makes a very compelling case for “here to stay”. The fact is that as governments develop a standard, all government agencies, citizens who use the documents, and vendors who work with the government will all start to adopt the format.

I know within IBM we’re making the switch. Bob Sutor recently pointed that out. On Friday I also upgraded to the latest build of Symphony (as did every IBMer did per our automatic update tool). The switch still has miles to go, but much of the mythical “last mile cable” has been installed.

What prompted me to realize this just today? I receive the ODF Alliance Newsletter regularly in my inbox. Today, I noticed the following:

(note that while the URL is in Spanish, the translation can be seen here thanks to Google)


ECUADOR CHARTS PATH TO ODF ADOPTION

The latest government in South America to advance the use of ODF is Ecuador. Upon its approval by the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Normalización (INEN) as an Ecuadoran national standard, ODF was also adopted for sending and receiving documents by the national government’s Secretariat for Information Technology (Subsecretaría de Informática), whose mission is to improve the government’s management of IT projects and coordinate actions in this field in other public sector institutions in Ecuador . In South America, the governments of Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela have already adopted ODF, as have several regional governments, including Parana (Brazil) and Misiones (Argentina). 

http://www.informatica.gov.ec/index.php/noticas/7-nacional/139-subinfo-adopta-odf-para-intercambio-de-informacion (Sp)

Posted by md on June 1st, 2009 | Filed in ODF, Open Standards, OpenOffice | 1 Comment »


One Response to “ODF adoption continues – has it ‘crossed the chasm’?”

  1. June 1st, 2009 at 6:33 pm

    OOXML BRM Convenor (Alex Brown) Joins the Pro-Mirosoft Wikipedia Spinners | Boycott Novell said:

    [...] activity aside, as was pointed out this morning, Ecuador embraces ODF and IBM is happy about it. What prompted me to realize this just today? I receive the ODF Alliance Newsletter regularly in [...]



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