Microsoft’s OOXML Format Receives More Setbacks
Microsoft has received another couple of setbacks in its bid to control office document formats. Microsoft’s Open Office XML document format has been challenged by a number of international groups.
The International Standards Organization (ISO) will soon begin evaluating the feedback of member countries regarding the proposed spec. Reportedly, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden and UK are submitting contradictions to OOXML, which may derail a proposed fast track process.
While not directly related to ISO approval, both Texas and Minnesota have recently introduced bills to the state legislature that would mandate the current ISO standard Open Document Format for all government documents. If the bills pass Texas and Minnesota will join Massachusetts and over a dozen countries world wide that have mandated open formats for government documents.
I’d like to point out, since it will inevitably come up in the comments, that these moves have very little to do with office software packages. Microsoft Office 2007 offers a free download of ODF plugins which allow it to read and write most of the ODF formats. If governments of the world want to continue to use MS Office, they can certainly do that. The issue in question here is whether or not Microsoft should have a lock on public document formats.
Governments and businesses alike seem to be slowly waking up to the fact that tying themselves to Microsoft and its document formats puts them at the whim of the Redmond giant. And that is bad for governments, documents and the citizens who need to access those documents.
For those that would like to learn more about the difference between Microsoft’s proposed document format and ODF can start with the Wikipedia article on the subject. Yes that Wikipedia article, which Microsoft infamously attempted to have paid authors edit.
You could also turn directly to Microsoft’s manual on OOXML, but I have to warn you it’s over 6000 pages long. You might feel, as India and some others do, that that’s a bit much. With the possible except of Marcel Proust, no one should ever write 6000 page documents.
