Dutch government launches ODF service

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 05 November 2009 04:28

Opinion and Analysis

The Dutch government has launched a web service called Officeshots.org which enables users to compare the output quality of various office suites as far as interoperability is concerned.
The service, Officeshots, launched by the government program Netherlands in Open Connection and the OpenDoc Society, is supported by a grant from NLNet Foundation, a non-profit.

The launch took place during the second ODF plugfest which brought together vendors like IBM, Google, KOffice, Microsoft, Novell and OpenOffice.org.

According to the president of the OpenDoc Society, Bert Bakker: "In a mature market a user should be able to compare the various suppliers transparently. Officeshots.org ensures that you can see who delivers the best support for document exchange standards"

The service is available in a number of languages, including English, French, German, Chinese and Dutch. Users can submit a document, and see what the output is like for the various applications on the market.

Officeshots enables both end users and developers to measure differences in quality. Vendors have been encouraged to add new office products to the service to allow customers to check as many products on the market before making a purchase.

Michiel Leenaars of the OpenDoc Society told iTWire this was the first service of its kind. "Similar things exist in the browser world, but no-one has ever done this for office apps," he said.

It was set up because things "are moving to a new world in which people can take their documents everywhere, and use different products along the way themselves or in collaboration with others. Historically, portability of documents was limited to people with the same vendor, and beyond that there were very few quality assurances.

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