Business as usual in Redmond

OpenDocument.Open XML.Two standards, both open, from two different sets of vendors. Of course you've already gathered that one of the standards is coming from Microsoft who, like the cheese, stands alone. OpenDocument is supported by the likes of Sun Microsystems and IBM while Open XML is a competing standard proposed by Microsoft.

Both standards attempt to address the issue of proprietary standards used by office suites such as Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, and Sun's StarOffice by introducing an open, XML-based format that can easily be manipulated by ISVs as well as competing products.

In a debate on the future of electronic document standards in Boston, Microsof't general manager of business strategy with Microsoft's information worker group said, "Additional standards give you more choice over a period of time."

Really. How interesting you say that, Mr. Yates, because in the past additional standards have generally resulted in end-users being locked in to using a particular vendor's tools to avoid using third party conversion tools which are often incomplete and complex.

Oh, you see that too, don't you? Yes, you do, as you apparently also were quoted as saying: "In the near term, the transition period from proprietary document formats to Open XML-based ones will be messy and complex"."Well, duh! Who didn't see that one coming?

It's certainly true that if the major office product vendors use admittedly competing but open standards that third party products will appear to facilitate the conversion between those standards. But that's just muddying the waters and is reminiscent of competing standards at the IP layer in the days of yesteryear. 802.3 won for a good reason, and the reason that the Internet works is because everyone supports the same protocol at the IP layer. Document exchange between disparate entities would work best if office vendors like Microsoft and Sun both supported the same document standard. Then the choice between which office suite a company or state government (which is what started this whole mess in the first place) chose would be based on price and value.

Microsoft is still counting on the cost of conversion to be so prohibitive that companies will choose to stay with its Office suite. Ignoring the already exorbitant price of Microsoft Office, you have to figure into the cost of a conversion (1) the cost of the new suite, (2) the cost of third party conversion software, and (3) the cost of man-hours to convert years and YEARS of documents from one format to another.

Competing standards indeed. This is nothing more than Microsoft refusing to play nice with others because its afraid of losing its stranglehold on the market. Its creating its "own" open standard to give the impression that it thinks open standards are a good thing while insuring that no one in their right mind would convert to another format because of the cost and complexity of doing so.

In other words, it's business as usual in Redmond.0