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A comment on Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .xls, .ppt) on October 1.

Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by EvanAnderson on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @05:12PM (#4578078)
Given that there's no further development happening at Microsoft on the DOC, XLS, and PPT formats it's unclear to me why there's any advantage to Google, from a code maintenance standpoint, to removing these formats. If Google was having to invest labor in maintaining the export functionality I suppose I could understand, but I would think the export code is long-since debugged and working. What makes the cost of maintaining this old feature so high as to warrant its removal?
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by Shooti on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @06:11PM (#4578302)
Also worth noting that the article has since been updated to clarify that it's only the 97-2003 format which has been dropped. Export to 2003-2007 .doc .xls and .ppt formats are still supported. Plus from the way it's phrased it seems like import from 97-2003 formats will still be supported, you just can't export them that way.
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by alanh on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @06:17PM (#4578319)
Okay, linkbait headline, then.
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by timdorr on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @11:14PM (#4579115)
It was via a clarification from Google PR. The article as originally submitted was correctly reporting, as the message from Google indicated a dropping of all .doc, .xls, and .ppt format export support.
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by brudgers on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @08:43PM (#4578776)
2007 Office software defaults to the new format, e.g. .docx and .xlsx
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by moystard on Thursday September 27, 2012 @05:33AM (#4579989)
It makes more sense now, it is just a non news then.
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by mcpherrinm on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @05:14PM (#4578086)
Any changes in their own internal format would surely require maintenance of the legacy Microsoft formats, which would be quite burdensome I expect.
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by brudgers on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @06:29PM (#4578361)
Yeah, it's not as if Google could abstract or overload the export function.
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by wahnfrieden on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @07:04PM (#4578474)
Easier said than done. As a general principle, existing features introduce maintenance and create drag when adding new features, so they better be worth it.
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by brudgers on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @08:41PM (#4578767)
It's easier to justify when you don't have customers, just data sources.

The reason to support .xls is that lots of other software besides Microsoft office use it and thus lots of people benefit from compatibility.

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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by wahnfrieden on Thursday September 27, 2012 @10:42AM (#4580913)
You can still import it, you just can't export to an especially old version of .xls.
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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by toyg on Thursday September 27, 2012 @03:53AM (#4579790)
Just do it like Microsoft products do: big warning that you could lose new features whenever you save to the old format.

I think this is a big mistake for Google.

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Re:Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats(.doc, .... by codeka on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @09:45PM (#4578927)
I don't think it's that simple. For example, currently Google Docs doesn't support merged cells in tables. If they add support for that in Google Docs, it means they would need to add support for it in all of the exporters as well.

So even though the format isn't changing, the subset of the format that Google works with is.

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