Microsoft’s Open Office XML (OOXML) document format may soon clear the final hurdle on the road to becoming an International Standards Organization (ISO) standard. Following the latest ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) in Geneva, the software giant has expressed growing confidence that opposition to the format is steadily being whittled away.
The standard has been rigorously discussed, analysed and modified over the past few months. It has been a long bumpy road, but one that will only improve the format, according to Jason Matusow, Microsoft’s director of corporate standards.
Microsoft developed the OOXML document format to replace the binary file method of storing documents used in early versions of its Office products. Following calls to make the use of its applications more open, Microsoft handed the format over to standards body Ecma for its approval, which it duly received.
The Ecma 376 standard was published in December 2006, but an initial attempt to get it recognised officially by the ISO ended in failure last September when the proposal failed to win sufficient votes. ISO acceptance is almost a guarantee of government adoption, so is often seen as key to the longevity of formats.
A final ruling from the ISO on whether the format can proceed as a standard under the current process is due at the end of this month, but whatever the result, Matusow is sure that the process has been worthwhile. “A ballot resolution involves a rigorous engineering process,” he said. “Regardless of the outcome, the result will be a much better implementation. The engineering that followed [ISO’s rebuff] addressed a lot of issues. Real changes have come from those comments, so we think we have a very high quality product.”
The standard has already gathered some support from both IT vendors and
customers, acceptance that could improve its standing in the wider community.
“As with any other specification, you see an ongoing set of implementations. For
our part, we made the XML-based format the default for Office back in August
2007.
Since then the standard has been worked on by people including Apple and the British Library. And we have seen many independent implementations, such as with Linux, on the Palm OS and on the iPhone,” Matusow said. “It is extremely important to get this kind of traction. There is a trend towards openness in documents and because of the use of OOXML, we are starting to deliver on that promise.”
However, with the rival, ISO-approved Open Document Format (ODF) already building a substantial user base, Microsoft is keen to address lingering concerns about OOXML’s openness and usability to ensure its final ratification. In short, getting the nod from the ISO will have a big financial payback for the software giant.
“The ratification of the standard is very important for governments, particularly those making moves towards e-enabling their services,” said Matusow. “Acceptable standards play a very large role in that.”
Discussing the relative merits of the two competing open formats, Matusow is,
not surprisingly, convinced that users’ interests are better served by OOXML.
“We take a very holistic approach to interoperability and think that the real
value of a standard is in its implementation. We know that OOXML is the much
richer format [than ODF].”
Others, however, would argue that yet another format battle is the last thing users, and the IT professionals tasked with supporting them, need. Andy Updegrove, founder of standards specialist Consortiuminfo.org and co-founder of US technology law firm Gesmer Updegrove, said the existence of two competing standards in any area is best avoided.
“Having two standards for the same purpose is almost always a bad thing, because it means that not only do firms have to support both of them, but you also have to deal with passing in this case documents between them,” he explained. “Every time something needs to cross from one standards ecosystem to another, there’s more that you have to put in place to make that happen and less benefit from having standardised at all.”
He added that as Office remains at the heart of OOXML implementations, OOXML will primarily benefit software developers in the Microsoft ecosystem, rather than individual users and IT managers.
Although much of the OOXML/ODF debate has been focused on the preservation of historical documents and safeguarding future access to electronic archives issues of great significance for organisations such as government bodies and libraries support for different document formats will eventually have an impact across all industry sectors.
“The issue will first hit IT managers in the public sector, and in particular in Europe, where there is quite a lot of momentum towards open e-government. There’s been enough unhappiness over how the OOXML [ISO] process has played out that I expect some government agencies will specify ODF regardless of whether OOXML is adopted later this month,” predicted Updegrove. “The next to be affected would be IT managers at organisations that need to have a fair amount to do with government offices, such as law firms, service providers and lobbyists.”
As the number of individuals creating documents in either ODF or OOXML increases, the number of firms needing to support both these formats will also rise. Although translator tools are available to allow ODF and OOXML documents to be read by non-supporting applications, certain customers or partners might not want to download a separate piece of software to enable them to access documents, such as spreadsheets or presentations, in a different format.
“Even though my law firm has historically been an Office shop, we’ve now incorporated converters into our IT structure so that everyone can open ODF files as well, due to the fact that more such files are coming our way,” Updegrove explained. “So there will be a different tipping point sector by sector, where enough calls to open a file come to the internal helpdesk that it just makes sense to offer the capability at the desktop.”
