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Revised note (it will be corrected later for grammer, but the gist is there). Many thanks for the suggestions ` Currently 90% of computer users use microsoft office to prepare documents. 10% of users do not and that 10% is increasing for the following reasons - Governments and organisations worldwide want to be sure they have access to their data. At the moment if Microsoft ends support for *doc file formats as they have for eg Windows 98, then they cannot. Microsoft recently lost its case for its files to be an accepted ISO standard, despite them trying to buy votes. (The only accepted ISO standard for "office" files is that for ODF files, which can be opened in Microsoft). - People who work on Microsoft files at home, are required to buy Microsoft Office. If documents are sent in *docx format then recipients have to upgrade their computers. Why should users be forced to upgrade their computers because Microsoft has changed their file format? - Microsoft Office costs money that could be used for other purposes: we are a teaching institution, not a sales operation for Microsoft. The scarce resources we have should be spent on teaching: not obsolete software - Education is a right: Public data should be accessible to citizens independent off their income and their physical abilities. IF we are serious about wanting to provide our students with a tool that can be used throughout their life and be accessible to all despite their income then frankly there is only one choice at the moment: move from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice as the default office program. - It is free - It is an ISO standard - It reads and writes .doc and .xls files
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