MS Open XML Now an ECMA Standard

Late last week, news came down that ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) had approved Microsoft's Open XML -- now slated to become the document format underlying Office 2007 -- as an international standard, a step viewed as putting Open XML on the fast track for ISO approval. In the process, ECMA auditors are said to have made significant changes in the standard, and produced over 6,000 pages of documentation, aimed at helping developers obtain consistent results, even when using only portions of the technology.

That's not a bad thing. It means that ... Well, that Office apps will follow an XML document standard, most of which will be well-documented, and, after all, it's XML -- so you load a document and puzzle over it and eventually, some of it swims into focus, right? And this standard -- or most of it -- won't move around so much that third-party solution and integration providers can't get a handle on it and build things of some lasting value.

It does not, however, mean that a single XML document standard now exists. Indeed, some pundits (who should probably know better) seem to have confused MS Open XML with OpenDocument, the low-level document representation used by Sun's OpenOffice, and actively championed by folks like Sun and IBM. IBM (the sole dissenting voice) voted against ratification of Open XML, calling OpenDocument a "vastly superior" technology. Said Bob Sutor, vice president for open source and standards for IBM, in his blog: "It (OpenDocument) is an example of a real open standard versus a vendor-dictated spec that documents proprietary products via XML. ... ODF is about the future, Open XML is about the past. We voted for the future."

In the short term, however, pundits seem to concur that the ratification may have given Microsoft back its PR edge with enterprises and federal/state/local government offices worried about lock-in to proprietary products; and wonder if this may ultimately contribute to stemming the current tide of "cutting up rough and moving to Linux" in those precincts.

Posted by John Jainschigg at 01:49 PM  Permalink