01.18.08
Uh Oh! Microsoft Already Supports OpenDocument Format?
“We should dedicate a cross-group team to come up with ways to leverage Windows technically more.”
–Jim Allchin, Microsoft
How quickly things change. Several months ago, Stephen Walli, a former a Microsoft manager and also a consultant/advisor to them, said that Microsoft would need to support ODF. He argued that this was inevitable. Are we beginning to see first signs of this prophecy materialising? It sure looks like it. [via Andy Updegrove]
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.
It is worth adding that Microsoft took a similar approach in the adoption of next-generation DVD formats. Even though it backed Toshiba’s HDDVD and may have issued a fat cheque (bribe) to support Toshiba, Microsoft also said that if Sony’s Blu-ray wins, it will support it. These claims were made earlier this year and then again approximately a week ago. The funny thing is that earlier this week Microsoft jumped at the press again and claimed this a to be mistake made by a Microsoft spokesman. Microsoft surely realised that this was damaging to its attempt to save HDDVD amid a stunning defeat.
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.
Whatever happens at the end, ODF is here to stay and thrive. Andy Updegrove’s words on this matter are very reassuring.
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.
The most important message of this post is that Microsoft has just admitted that it can graft its ECMA-OOXML ‘extensions’ and mount them on top of the international standard, ODF. Microsoft has given yet another reason to reject simplified OOXML, which is a case of reinventing the wheel and unnecessarily fragmenting the industry. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
peter frank said,
January 18, 2008 at 7:43 pm
wow, everybody is taking this open document and open source stuff, i found a blog thats its all nonsense, http://www.opentopix.com
Amit said,
January 18, 2008 at 10:04 pm
great post !
bookmarked @ http://livbit.com
Andy said,
January 19, 2008 at 12:14 am
What are you on about exactly? Of course Microsoft supports their own standard. It’d be crazy if they didn’t. OOXML has been in use since the introduction of Microsoft Office 2007 (in form of .DOCX and the like).
Andy said,
January 19, 2008 at 12:19 am
nevermind, I skimmed through the text too fast. Shouldn’t read and comment on stuff at 6 in the morning.
AntiWindows said,
January 19, 2008 at 12:56 pm
It’s very good and great. Microsoft sucks.
BuBLe_GuN said,
January 19, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Yes!!! Linux FOREVER!!!
Nephersir7 said,
January 19, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Opensource FTW! We should only have to pay for hardware. Microsoft is sinking!
ulric said,
January 19, 2008 at 10:27 pm
You’re totally wrong about this, you misunderstand the use of words ‘deprecated’ and ‘extensions’.
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 said,
January 19, 2008 at 10:39 pm
ulric,
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 said,
April 23, 2008 at 4:26 am
I think they tried the same tactic with Internet Explorer, by extending the technology beyond the defined standards for better integration with windows, and which is why Internet Explorer is STILL broken!
chris said,
July 12, 2008 at 9:21 am
great effort to gett all this