Critics Blast Microsoft Despite ODF Support Pledge Microsoft Asking for More Trouble? Stuart J. Johnston
Asking for more trouble?
In addition to pledging to support ODF and to fix OOXML compliance, Microsoft also is making still further promises relating to interoperability.
For one thing, the company is also joining the technical committees that help guide ODF. Microsoft said it would join the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) technical committee, which is working on the next version of ODF.
It also said it would join the ISO committee set up to maintain ODF. Microsoft is already a member of the ISO technical committee that oversees IS29500.
Besides working with ODF, though, Microsoft also announced that Office 2007 SP2 will add native support for its XML Paper Specification (XPS), as well as XPS's competitors, Adobe's (NASDAQ: ADBE) Portable Document Format (PDF) version 1.5 and PDF/A.
Needless to say, all eyes will be on Microsoft as it fulfills its interoperability promises — or fails to.
After "all the rhetoric on both sides over the approval of OOXML, it's critical for Microsoft to deliver on their promises to work in this world of open standards," Charles King, principal analyst at researcher Pund-IT, told InternetNews.com.
"Given the amount of bad blood out there, Microsoft is going to be under the microscope," King added.
Competitive pressures aren't the only problems that Microsoft faces regarding file formats.
For instance, Microsoft is still awaiting the results of two probes by the European Commission (EC) — one specifically regarding whether or not OOXML/IS29500 is adequately "open" for competitors.
Additionally, published reports have suggested that the EC is also investigating whether Microsoft strongarmed ISO bodies into approving OOXML.
David Needle, InternetNews.com's West Coast bureau chief, contributed to this report.
