Microsoft OOXML SDK renews standards debate

With the non-decision from the ISO standards body last month on whether to adopt Microsoft OOXML (Open Office XML) file format as an industry standard and Microsoft's decision to release the OOXML SDK next month, the discussions over OOXML worthiness a standard is expected to become heated once again.

After Microsoft issued its rendition of OOXML in September, it went up for ISO approval but failed. However, it was approved by ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association. Although it didn't get a passing grade from the more prestigious ISO, there were many "comments" suggesting ways to improve the specification.

[ RealityCheck: What's ODF vs. OOXML really all about? ]

ECMA revised the spec, and that is what the SDK is now based on and the one being presented to ISO for a second time.

The debate, however, continues to focus on whether or not OOXML is actually an open format that can be used by any desktop productivity application or is it simply a new but proprietary Microsoft file format that locks users in to the Microsoft way of doing things.

Those arguments are actually misplaced -- not that both sides don't have a hand in spinning the debate this way -- and misrepresent the real purpose of OOXML as well as the purpose of its rival ODF (Open Document Format).

What's at stake is Microsoft's huge installed base of Office users, according to Guy Creese, an analyst with the Burton Group.

Sun and IBM, two vocal supporters of ODF, see it as a way to get into the Microsoft installed base and gain millions of dollars of business, while Microsoft fears that ODF could erode a significant portion of its base.

Some European governments as well as the Massachusetts state government have already made their decision in favor of ODF.

"What you actually have are two standards both in area of file formats but both designed to solve different problems for different constituencies," says Jonathan Eunice, principal analyst at Illuminata.

OOXML was built to limit the threat of ODF by offering an alternative format also based on XML. But at the same time, a new file format from Microsoft has to support legacy Microsoft documents created in older Office formats, adds Creese.

Eunice points out that the code in OOXML sometimes references the way things were done in Office years even decades ago.

ODF, on the other hand, comes from a different place. Its world view, one might say, is different: built to solve a different kind of problem for interoperability, according to Creese.

Both the threat of being locked into a Microsoft standard and promise of interoperability with a wide swath of disparate applications that have nothing to do with Microsoft Office may be why many local, state, and national governments, as well as school systems, are considering standardizing on ODF.

In addition, supporters of ODF say the OOXML spec is large and unwieldy and that there is no need for that level of complexity.