Escaping the scene of the crime or just a question of timing?

Some days ago we unleashed a quick post to show that major departures in Microsoft India (there was more than one, despite incomplete reports) were potentially to do with the OOXML scandals. The following new article from Business Standard seems to almost concur, but it does not make it clear enough (mind-reading remain a hard task).

Neelam Dhawan's exit from Microsoft comes amid India and three other countries' opposition to International Organisation for Standardisation's decision to declare software developers Office Open XML (OOXML) file format as an international standard.

The refusal from India to accept the standard could make it difficult for Microsoft to get government business since governments worldwide, including India, prefer standards and are wary of holding digital data in proprietary formats, which could make them hostage to a software vendor.

States, such as Kerala and others from the north-east, are heavy adopters of ODF file formats, which are open and free (excluding maintenance and support).

Further to this, consider the fact that the European Commission openly speaks about the steps it's prepared to make in order to drag Microsoft's feet toward proper justice. India is unlikely to fall under the same umbrella of investigation, but it could toughen the case. Whether this will lead just to fines or also annul OOXML (as ISO) and revert market dynamics... well, that's just hard to predict. But here's Forbes' take.

EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said the EU executive has on file further cases of alleged antitrust abuse in technology markets.

Kroes said: 'The Commission has found competition problems in at least some technology markets ... and there are other cases of alleged unlawful conduct pending.'

How considerable will the fine be? More importantly, what will this teach the world about this merciless pursuit for OOXML? How will this be remembered in the future or documented for technology historians? We are already aware of at least one colossal case of whitewashing history. People are taught to believe that "open source" is disruption despite the fact that it thrived happily before proprietary software actually came along. ⬆

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

--Winston Churchill