Korea Ministry of Information and Communication adopting ODF

I really think Malaysia should adopt ODF (ISO 26300:2006)  as a Malaysian Standard. What say you?

Here's good news about South Korea adopting ODF. Even the Korean software, Haansoft is on the way to adopt the ODF standard. So what are we in Malaysia waiting for?

The D Daily (Korea): The MIC, pushing for ODF, MS office might be hurt

http://www.ddaily.co.kr/english/?fn=view&article_num=21636

조휘섭기자 hscho@ddaily.co.kr
2007년 03월 09일 06:59:51

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) announced on the 7th that it is intending to adopt Open Document Format (ODF) as its software document standard for administrative work.

In that case, software that does not support ODF will be completely excluded from the public agencies.

Currently, software from Microsoft and Haansoft that dominate the Korean market does not support ODF. However, Haansoft said that they have planned to make its product support ODF.

One official from Haansoft said, “We are preparing for ODF support software internally. However, the software might be hard to have all the features of existing Haansoft’s office software for technical reasons.”

Microsoft, on the other hand, is reluctant to make its software support ODF. Since the software giant monopolizes the office software market, standardization of software will result in lowering market share for the company.

Therefore, if the Korean government adopts ODF files as a standard, Microsoft will not be able to provide its product to the government offices.

One official from the Ministry said, “We only have a basic plan at the moment. We are not implementing it yet. We will discuss with the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs over this.”