The Brits Hate Microsoft Office

According to a report from InformationWeek, the Brits are not fans of Microsoft Office. Well, sort of.

The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) contends that Microsoft has failed to support open standards in its Office 2007 desktop productivity suite

"In the context of the education system this can result in higher prices and a range of other unsatisfactory effects," BECTA said in a statement Tuesday. This is another one of those Microsoft-uses-too-much-proprietary-software stories, as BECTA says Office 2007 (built on Office Open XML) does not work with software from other vendors. Did anyone else hear those few short words over their shoulder? You know: anti-trust lawsuit?

"It is not just the interests of competitors and the wider marketplace that are damaged when barriers to effective interoperability are created. Such barriers can also damage the interests of education and training organization, learners, teachers and parents," said Stephen Lucey, BECTA's executive director for strategic technologies, also in a statement.

BECTA is asking the EU to make Microsoft support open standards. Check out InformationWeek for more info.