Open Document Standards - It's War

March 9th, 2006:With the kind of up-front bullishness made famous by CEO, Steve Balmer, Microsoft is calling the kettle black in the fight for the office document standard.

By Tim Smith

Speaking to the The Register, Microsoft's director of corporate standards, Jason Matusow lashed out at the industry alliance behind the Open Document Format, saying that it is merely pushing its standard "… in an effort to push an economic agenda with a competing product".

The Open Document Format Alliance comprises 35 industry heavyweights including Sun Microsystems and IBM which sell Star Office and Lotus Workplace respectively. Both of these products make use of the proposed Open Office file format - and compete with Microsoft's own Office offering.

Matuslow's comment comes rapidly after Microsoft's Alan Yates, a general manager for Microsoft's Information Worker group, slammed Open Office (the open source Office suite that underpins Star Office) as, "10 years out of date" and "…fine if you have very limited needs because it was really designed around what Microsoft Office products were designed around 10 years ago."

Both the opposing sides in what is potentially a $billion conflict when translated to government standards for document formats in ILM and ECM are claiming the moral high ground by waving the ethical banner of 'Open Standard'.

But only Microsoft has stated - albeit in an unofficial interview to one source - that the other side is less than ethically clean and is using the argument to push for economic advantage.

Going on the offensive with such a statement of the obvious in this way does beg the reaction "Well, yes, your point is?" Surely neither side expects anybody to believe that with the future of Office document standards at stake, the argument here regards the perfection and 'community fellowship' of an open standard? Of course it's about pushing product. If this was not the case, all the players would have already gathered around a table, made the kind of agreement that is common among open source developers, given the standard a name, ratified it via ISO - and developed competing product to make best use of that standard.

We eagerly await the next salvo of moral indignation as we await a unified standard for Document Management at the desktop.

Do you just want a standard that works? Comment on this story.

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Open Document Format Alliance Announced