Microsoft vs. Open Office: Getting to the Bottom of It, Once and For All

[paladindythe]

Please excuse me, but I'm a bit confused. .doc and .rtf are both document file types, and are both owned by Microsoft, are both kept proprietary, and are both linked to MS Office, right?
So... Why are there two of them?

Basically they came up with RTF first. Once upon a time, when Office was in its infancy, RTF was a lighter weight file-type, without lots of 'stuff' describing the document (just look at the difference in sizes between a one page RTF and DOC file). Nowdays, it really doesn't matter, but back then it did.  Microsoft has made a business out of reverse compatability (try to run a 10 year old piece of software on a modern Mac...), so I guess it's a habit to keep it around.  (Besides, wordpad--which is distributed with Windows--uses RTF and word uses doc)