OStatic

Because Microsoft Windows is on more than 90 percent of business desktops, many people who criticize the company for anti-competitive practices focus on Windows. The operating system, for example, has steadily bundled various types of tools over the years, leading to the demise of several companies that offered the same tools on a standalone basis. It's worth remembering, though, that the Office applications are a huge part of Microsoft's business, and they, too, are on more than 90 percent of business desktops.

While it's well-known that Microsoft was and is fiercely protective of proprietary aspects of applications such as Word, Excel and Visio, Boycott Novell has been running one of the more revealing series of posts on this topic that I've seen. The series focuses on the Comes vs. Microsoft class-action lawsuit, which sought more than $330 million, alleging anti-competitive practices from the software giant. In particular, it's striking to read some of the messages in this e-mail thread (PDF) regarding Microsoft's openness in the area of file formats for its Office applications.

The rumors were true: Microsoft is opening up its Office 2007 suite of productivity applications to full support for other formats, including Open Document Format (ODF). Earlier this year, Microsoft was under fire for pushing its own Open Office XML set of formats as an international standard, when many people in the open source community wanted support for the more strictly open ODF standard. Microsoft officials have now also said that Office will fully support PDF format and XML Paper Specification (XPS). The new formats will arrive in Service Pack 2 for Office 2007, early next year, and some translators will arrive before then.

Why is OOXML a bad standard? What does it mean for open source developers? And what, if anything, can menbers of the open source community do, now that OOXML has been adopted by the ISO?

Late last month Microsoft received a tentative slap in the face when the ISO\IEC didnﾒt approve Microsoftﾒ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 its Office file format approved.

Late last year the head of the working group handling Microsoftﾒs application at the ISO accused the company of stacking his group and interfering in ISO business.