Open Source Blog

“While the software giant continues to lobby the state government to change its mind and accept that Microsoft's forthcoming Office Open XML Formats are open enough to be considered, there are other, more long-term options open to the company. These include adopting OpenDocument as a format within Office, and opening up its file formats to an industry standards body,” I added.

“If the Massachusetts plan encourages other government organizations and businesses to adopt similar policies with regards to open office formats, it may be that Microsoft has little choice but to either adopt OpenDocument or make the Office Open XML Formats truly open.”

“Truly open” is a subjective statement of course, and you can make up your own minds about whether Microsoft has done that.

I also considered the potential that Massachusetts’ decision was based in part on encouraging Microsoft to open up.

“The Massachusetts plan certainly puts a little more pressure on Microsoft, and it has been argued that that could be one of its aims. While the state's plan is clearly based on improving data exchange via open formats, it should not be forgotten that the state was the only one to hold out against Microsoft's settlement with the Department of Justice.”

With that in mind, could the inclusion of OOXML on the ETRM be considered a victory? Andy Updegrove makes a good case for it being a phyrric one at best.

“Office still commands a huge lead in the marketplace, and its ability to outspend the new entrants (many open source) into the office productivity suite marketplace will be enormous. If no one is buying ODF-compliant products, no one will develop them. And if no one is developing them, no one will be competing with Microsoft. And if no one is competing with Microsoft, then no one will care whether Microsoft contributes new features to Ecma or maintains them as proprietary extensions of Ecma 376, or whether it fully implements Ecma 376, or whether, in fact, it continues to support Ecma 376 at all. And then we will be right back where we started - dependent upon a single vendor, and with the accessibility of its all current documents, and indeed the history of our civilization, at risk.”