Standards body Ecma International has created a committee to
standardise Microsoft Office document formats, handing the software giant a victory in an intensifying struggle over desktop software.At a general assembly meeting of Ecma in Nice, France, on Friday, the Geneva-based organisation established a technical committee to make formal standards from Microsoft's XML-based Office file formats.
The committee will have responsibility for enhancing the standard "while maintaining backward compatibility" and to handle maintenance of the specification. A first edition is scheduled for completion by the end of 2006, according to Ecma.
The move, already anticipated, is the latest volley in a match being fought in standards bodies, state governments and blogs. At stake is whether Microsoft can retain its current level of dominance in productivity applications, a source of billions of dollars of profit for the company.
Microsoft's desktop application hegemony is being challenged by a standard, called OpenDocument. Products that used OpenDocument are only now coming onto the market and are used far less than Office. But many Microsoft rivals, including IBM, Sun and Google, are leveraging their collective weight behind OpenDocument.
"Companies have been unsuccessful at competing [against] Microsoft Office for at least 10 years with other products," said Gartner analyst Michael Silver. "Now they are trying to use the file format as a wedge issue to try to unlock Microsoft's hold."
The rival OpenDocument format rose in prominence earlier this year when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a policy — now being reviewed — that mandated the use of OpenDocument for storing documents generated in executive-branch state agencies.
The debate over the state's productivity application standards will continue on Wednesday at a state senate hearing at the State House in Boston. The forum will be hosted by the Senate committee on economic development and emerging technologies and the state's science and technology caucus.
Although its millions of desktop computers make the state of Massachusetts a sizable customer for any provider, the fate of its OpenDocument policy has taken on greater significance. It has become something of landmark issue, attracting a flurry of open letters from lobbying groups and industry executives with a vested interest.
Sun chief executive Scott McNealy wrote to Massachusetts officials earlier this year. "We feel that requiring the use of an office document format, OpenDocument 1.0, which is standardised by a public process, completely free of legal encumbrances, already implemented in multiple products, not controlled by any one vendor, and on its way to being an ISO standard is enlightened and will pay long-term benefits to the citizens of Massachusetts," he stated.
Another indication of the importance of the case is the planned attendance of Alan Yates, the general manager of Microsoft's Information Worker division, who has led its standardisation efforts. Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of standards and Sun's Bob Sproull, a Sun fellow and vice president of Sun Labs in Massachusetts, are also on the agenda.
Legal framework
Microsoft executives said it decided to standardise its Office file
formats to allow customers, notably national governments with long-term
archival needs, to access the contents of documents for years without
being dependent on Microsoft.
"Ecma International's creation of the Technical Committee to produce a formal standard — which is fully compatible with...
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Talkback
If this is any victory for Microsoft at all, it is not a clear one, and may wind up being Pyrrhic.
The label of "Standard" will not be bestowed for at least a year. OpenDocument has already received that distinction, and thus has a significant head start.
Further, there is no guarantee that Microsoft's format will be declared a standard at all. It does not conform to the spirt of standard, even if it somehow does meet the letter.
There are precisely zero implementations of Microsoft's proposed standard right now. Nor will MS Office 12 likely be ready in time a year from now, so there will still be zero. In contrast, OpenOffice 2, StarOffice 8, Abiword, TextMaker, and Writely support OpenDocument now, and Workplace, WordPerfect and many others will probably be ready within the year. There's no contest!
Finally, Massachusetts has already made their decision. If Microsoft's format is, by unlikely chance, declared a 'standard,' it won't matter. ODF has been selected by Mass, and there's little justification for switching to a different 'standard' that simply does the same thing! (Even if that were true and there were not subtle locks in whatever MS finally implements.)
Massachusetts' choice will (indeed, already has) opened the floodgates. ODF is going to gain ground, and rapidly, and everywhere in the world.
The best part is, everyone will benefit! Even those who don't see the advantages now and who strenuously argue to try to maintain the status quo (though it would change even if Microsoft maintained its hegemony). Massachusetts has chosen a tough, but extremely important, fight. And they'll prevail.
Now that it seems to be clear for some people that Office Open XML could be considered as a standard, "freely" and without the "risk to be sued"... when would we see a free (as in beer) software (opposed to OOo) that would process with this MS Stuff? How long must we wait until this product appears as mature as OOo? Does Massachussetts senator have an answer for his state's citizens about it? What is now the plan for MS after this production of deep smoke?
Let's see if we have this correctly.
We have OpenDocument, an open, public, published standard with absolutely no restrictive Nondisclosure agreements, and at least one implementation available as Open Source code. The cost, nominal to none, and it's available today.
We have Microsoft, a company known for ignoring even it's own so-called "standards" whenever it's convenient or might generate additional revenue, offering unspecified documentation, to a very small committee, for a product which, as a function of it's license agreements, can only be implemented by Microsoft, for Windows. And something, nobody knows exactly what, will be available by the end of 2006, before or after the release of Vista and long after the release and marketing push for Office 2005.
Microsoft isn't promising anything in terms of industry standard support, but expects corporations, government agencies, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations to pony up tens of billions of dollars/euros on Windows 2005, instead of using their existing Office 2000 applications and "upgrading" in the form of software suites compliant with OpenDocument such as Open Office.
Open Office has been downloaded by over 100 million computers, and may have been cloned to many millions more.
But Microsoft wants governments and major corporations to cling to Microsoft's proprietary document formats for another 2-3 years until their "Open" XML document product becomes available in some future and unannounced version of Microsoft Office.
Wanna buy a bridge?