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EU adds document formats to its Microsoft concerns

27/05/2008 20:52:00 Milorad Topalovic

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Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer speaks during a luncheon and conference on technology and innovation in Madrid April 25, 2008.

Microsoft said Wednesday it would update Office 2007 to allow users to save text, spreadsheets and other documents in the Portable Docu

Microsoft said Wednesday it would update Office 2007 to allow users to save text, spreadsheets and other documents in the Portable Document Format — as PDF files — and other non-Microsoft file formats, in addition to its own Office Open XML format, known as OOXML.

The changes, due next year, would add the formats — including a competing standard called OpenDocument Format created by open source developers and used by IBM Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and others — as defaults consumers could choose from for saving all their documents.

Microsoft's announcement was the latest in a series of moves meant to show it has changed its ways and is no longer the same company whose anticompetitive behavior provoked more than $2.63 billion in fines in the E.U.

Critics have stayed skeptical of Microsoft's vows to make its software work better with rival programs, and European regulators opened two new Microsoft antitrust investigations in January, one related to the OOXML format.

"In its ongoing antitrust investigation concerning interoperability with Microsoft Office, the commission will investigate whether the announced support of ODF in Office leads to better interoperability," the European Union's executive arm said Thursday.

Critics who support ODF say Microsoft is trying to supplant ODF and with OOXML and lock users into buying Office programs forever, stemming the threat of open source software eating into its market share.

Despite a chorus of complaints, OOXML was approved last month as an international standard, paving the way for it to be used by the IT departments of governments and large corporations.

Microsoft said Wednesday it continues to work with the open source community on an OOXML-ODF translator.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker said the changes will be made with Office 2007 Service Pack 2, expected in the first half of 2009.

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Comments (7 posted):

Sofia on 23/03/2012 11:21:01

Well, it wouldn't stay with ISO very long.In inprcpile, IBM might want to come up with an OOXML Understander' to run on zSeries (mainframe) Websphere as part of an office automation solution for a well-funded client. So, taking that as an example of an application which doesn't appear on a user's desktop or accept their keystrokes, you can probably think of others. Firstly, no-one but Microsoft can sensibly implement the specification, nor can they test conformance. Previous articles on Bob's blog estimate 150 person-years to implement, even if you make sensible guesses as to the imperfectly-specified portions. And then, how do you even begin to test conformance and interoperability ?So, why bother to spend 150 person-years of engineering effort, when there's a perfectly good ISO spec there already, with several implementations on the market (and no-charge ones available for anyone to pick up from open project web sites) already ?Secondly, if Microsoft's track record is anything to go by, they will steadily add more to the document spec in what appears to the rest of the world to be an ad-hoc fashion. That's how we got from Word 1.0 back in 1985 or so, to Microsoft Office 2007 now; it's how Microsoft persuade people to part with more money in the direction of Redmond with each new release. Yes, new variants are arguably better in various ways; but they achieve that at the expense of interoperability with old variants of the same product.There's no reason to think they would change the habit of a lifetime. So, even if ISO do issue a standard, pretty soon there won't be any implementations of the standard.Glad to hear you're on examining the proposal. Don't take any money privately from any corporation (not Microsoft, not IBM, not Sun, not any of them) take salary from your employer, and if you take any money or rewards from anyone else, declare it publically to the UK committee. And give your own professional judgement when it comes to the vote.I think I know what's best. But I'm not on the committee. I don't get a say.

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Easter on 24/03/2012 17:50:13

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Valinda on 01/04/2012 12:22:25

I think the situation is very clear. Alex Brown claims things about ODF that are not true. Rob Weir challenges those and Alex Brown refuse to back down.Initially we could imagine that perhaps Alex Brown was just careless, but his latest post at Rob Weirs blog pretty much show that he really believe that he has found something substationtal. I wonder if anyone is surprised.

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Destrie on 07/04/2012 13:31:25

40 years ago, if you predicted that their handset rental business would come to an end, and they would be giving a new kind of handset away for free. And yet they now that ATT has an incredible selection of free phones online.Of course, the value comes when you use the highly-reliable infrastructure behind it for controlled collaboration with others. , anyone ?Should there be a range of Symphonies, like ATT’s range of phones ?

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Tisha on 19/04/2012 13:44:43

As I say, I’m less interested in the specific situation and more interested in how we build an inclusive environment where issues – big or small – get talked through constructively and fixed.

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Kaleigh on 20/04/2012 12:46:34

It will take a great deal of explanation why a government would see a benefit in mandating a monopoly or in acknowledging that a standard for a public utility can be more than a single thing. There seems to be a mis-apprehension of what OOXML offers in in terms of XML (it’s not what you expect from XML). There is, on the one hand, a sense of reality that governments are powerless to stop Microsoft’s next format and, on the other hand, a belief that anything XML is either good or an improvement on the past (since at least Microsoft is opening something — “…we’re not quite sure what” — to public scrutiny.This policy will result in the same old constipation of common ICT systems, a clogging of peoples’ documents and, worse of all, it regiments — by government sanction — the purchase of more software designed by an American corporation to stop you from using competing software products.Denmark will reverse on this path from recognition of the simple reality that a sanction of dual standards stops innovation, choice of applications and service oriented modular flexibility throughout the system stacks all over the country. Perhaps the lesser pain comes from the welding of a higher cost structure into the Danish document producing economy.

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