Microsoft’s plan to seek standardisation for a format that challenges Adobe’s ubiquitous PDF is dividing observers. 

XPS (XML Paper Specification) has already raised concerns, in part because it competes with what has become a de facto standard for maintaining file formatting, logos and other page elements when files are emailed, shared or printed.

Microsoft said it submitted the XPS spec together with 15 other companies to standards-setting organisation Ecma International.

“This submission is separate from the Office OpenXML (OOXML) file format effort,” said a Microsoft spokesman. “We will be happy to comment further once Ecma releases more details."

Microsoft’s approach to Ecma replicates an earlier move to make its Office Open XML (OOXML) a standard. That angered supporters of the rival Open Document Format (ODF), some of whom suggested Microsoft’s heavyweight documentation was intended to deter its progress.

One critic, Sun chief open source officer Simon Phipps, also derided Ecma as “a coin-in-the-slot standards organisation”.

However, Ecma’s Technical Committee states that XPS could go on to become an ISO or other standard.

Microsoft’s moves are already upsetting some observers.

On his personal blog, IBM vice-president for open-source and standards Bob Sutor wrote, “The standard must be compatible with Microsoft’s implementation, which is the only implementation. How open. How independent. How collaborative. What do you think? Should we just save time and money and let Microsoft simply define international standards for us based on what they put in their products?”

On the ConsortiumInfo.org site, technology law expert Andy Updegrove  wrote: “If OOXML, and now XPS, each sail through Ecma and are then adopted by ISO … then I think that we might as well declare ‘game over’ for open standards.”

However, some noted that a positive outcome could be forthcoming in that Adobe will have to continue to open up PDF, a process it started in January by announcing plans to submit the PDF specification for ISO approval.

At the launch of a partnership with the UK National Archives today, speakers said that the overwhelming number of documents created in Microsoft programs made it an outstanding candidate for protecting the legibility and manipulability of documents for the future.

“We need to ensure that the documents written in Word are here in years to come,” said Natalie Ceeney, chief executive of the National Archives. “It’s a potential black hole if we don’t solve the problem.”

Adam Farquhar, head of e-architecture at the British Library, also praised Microsoft.

“I was very worried by billions of documents worth billions of euros kept in binary file formats and at long-term risk [but the awareness Microsoft has] shown of the problem has been a huge sea change,” he said.