--Jim Allchin, Microsoft
Also, if individual governments mandate the use of ODF instead of Open XML, Microsoft would adapt, Knowlton said. The company would then implement the missing functionality that ODF doesn't support. However, those extensions would be custom-designed and outside of the standard, which is counter to the idea of an open document standard, Knowlton said. "Disastrous? No. But definitely not preferable," he said.
The same goes for ODF and OOXML in this case. The quote above shows that Microsoft is already looking at the possibility of supporting, implementing and incorporating ODF. It makes it clear that this is doable, but the company is very cautious with its use of words. If it utters something which can be perceived as ODF endorsement, ISO can reject OOXML and claim that ODF (plus the extensions that Microsoft speaks about in this case) may be sufficient, rendering OOXML totally obsolete. Standards should be unified, single, universal. By putting opaque extensions in a "deprecated basket", Microsoft has just made ECMA-OOXML simply a duplicate candidate, which surely should be rejected.
Mark those word from Microsoft's Knowlton. They will be very handy in the future. Essentially, Microsoft has just shown willingness to deviate from its broken formats (OOXML). The aim is of course to keep its cash cow (Microsoft Office) relevant to a wider audience. It hopes to conquer even countries where ODF is strictly required. What this means to interoperability is a separate matter worth discussing in isolation.
Early in the week we spoke about the Dutch group which demanded access to old and increasingly-deprecated binary formats. This is required for easing the migration from Microsoft Office binaries to ODF. The group appears to be getting its way at the moment if Groklaw's suppositions are in fact correct. But there is also a big catch.
There's nothing like an EU Commission investigation to get Microsoft to open up a little, is there?
[...]
Microsoft says it will make the release of the binary formats by February 15th. I don't see how that gives anyone time to evaluate before the ballot resolution meeting at the end of February.
The unexpected success of ODF in the marketplace is a symptom of fundamental shifts in a maturing IT ecosystem, characterized by increasingly sophisticated and demanding end users, resurgent competition, new enabling technologies, and other forces that are largely beyond Microsoft's control.
History teaches that monopolies in the marketplace, like empires in the broader world, are rarely sustainable over long periods of time, and ultimately fall victim to both external attack and internal weaknesses. The degree to which Microsoft's competitors have embraced, and many Microsoft customers and national governments alike have resonated, with ODF are strong indications that the foundations upon which Microsoft's historical dominance has been based may at last be weakening.
Comments
peter frank
2008-01-19 00:43:43
Amit
2008-01-19 03:04:49
bookmarked @ http://livbit.com
Andy
2008-01-19 05:14:07
Andy
2008-01-19 05:19:26
AntiWindows
2008-01-19 17:56:37
BuBLe_GuN
2008-01-19 19:56:24
Nephersir7
2008-01-19 20:49:36
ulric
2008-01-20 03:27:36
If Microsoft support ODF as its native format (which is what your blog post is about, since it supports it already through an open-source plug-in Microsoft sponsorts http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/ ) it would use ODF, and store anything that isn't defined in the spec in MS-specific _extensions_. _Proprietary blocks_. Anything that you can create in Office 2007 that isn't in the ODF spec would be in these blocks.
The _deprecated_ blocks in OOXML, are for features from OLD VERSIONS that you can NO LONGER CREATE in new documents. That's why they are DEPRECATED in OOXML. It's to tell other apps to not bother reading/creating these blocks, they are only for backward compatibility with the old .doc format.
A Native implementation of ODF in Office 2007 would contain extensions for things that are BOTH deprecated and NOT-deprecated. So it would be less specified than OOXML
Roy Schestowitz
2008-01-20 03:39:53
I think that the point you somehow missed is that if you strip down all the deprecated and additional bits in OOXML, then all your are left with is a more fundamental structure of a document. This already exists and it's the international standard we know as ODF. What Microsoft has done here is akin to replacing a white car with a vanilla white car. This harms uniformity and it is only built to accommodate the needs of one single application. Why, for example, would Microsoft create DirectX to 'replace' OpenGL (they are no longer participating)? It is a similar situation. It creates fragmentation and increases workload for GPU engineers.
Paul
2008-04-23 09:26:38
chris
2008-07-12 14:21:34