Microsoft OOXML’s Last Chance for ISO Approval
by Daniel Koffler - Mar. 19, 2008Comments (2)- Related Blog Posts
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Late last month Microsoft received a tentative slap in the face when the ISO\IEC didn’t approve Microsoft’s OOXML (Open Office XML) format as an ISO standard. This came as a bit of a surprise to industry analysts as Microsoft has been lobbying hard to get their Office file format approved.
Late last year the head of the working group handling Microsoft’s application at the ISO accused the company of stacking his group and interfering in ISO business. Even key members of the Linux Foundation were anticipating approval of Microsoft’s standard at the end of February. However after months of balloting (and one can only assume lobbying of ISO members by Microsoft), their submission failed to gain approval by the standards body.
Microsoft may have been slapped down, but they are not out of the game yet. The ISO did not reject Microsoft’s application outright, but rather gave Microsoft the opportunity to change its specification based on the feedback received. The final vote on whether OOXML makes the ISO grade will be determined on March 29th.
Why is ISO approval so important for Microsoft? The short answer is that Microsoft needs ISO approval to prevent erosion of their 95% market share in the office application suite space. Without being able to say that its Microsoft Office suite is "open" and standards compliant, it risks losing many large corporate and public sector Microsoft Office deployments to competitors.
The main opposition to Microsoft's ISO bid has come from the so-called "Google Camp". Google has been championing an alternative document format called ODF (Open Document Format) which already has ISO approval. Google has been using scare tactics to drum up opposition to OOXML, claiming among other things that just because Microsoft is publishing the current version of OOXML as an open standard, there is no guarantee that future versions will remain open.
While Microsoft has left itself open to these kinds of charges based on questionable business practices over the years, this appears to be just another small chapter in the ongoing battle between Microsoft and Google. There is no real reason that OOXML and ODF cannot co-exist and Google’s protests on behalf of the open source community are starting to ring hollow considering they pick and choose which open source initiatives to back based on the perceived affect it will have on their bottom line. Come to think of it, it sounds like a strategy right out of Microsoft’s playbook.
Do you think there’s room for OOXML and ODF to coexist?
