[ossig] Microsoft attacks IBM over ODF

[Ditesh Kumar]

Microsoft continues its attacks of ODF. Nothing new here, recycling the
Valentine Day's letter ...

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Microsoft attacks IBM over ODF
Tom Espiner ZDNet UK 
Published: 10 May 2007 16:23 BST

Microsoft has severely criticised IBM, saying the company is pushing the
OpenDocument Format standard to the detriment of Microsoft's own Open
XML standard.

OpenDocument Format (ODF) is an open standard based on XML, designed to
be used in office-application development. Microsoft has been involved
in developing a rival open office standard, Open XML (OXML).


Although the main contributor to ODF is Sun, Microsoft has attacked IBM
for its support of ODF.

Darren Strange, senior product manager for Microsoft Office 2007, told
ZDNet UK on Wednesday: "The difference in view is that [IBM] are
espousing 'one standard fits all', which is hard for us. IBM seems keen
for ODF to be the only standard for everyone. The issue is about choice
— there's room in the world for more than one open standard. And it's
all XML — technically speaking, we speak the same language."

Microsoft had previously criticised IBM in an open letter in February
for including ODF in Lotus Notes.IBM had not responded to a request for
comment at the time of writing. However, the ODF Alliance, a global
group of organisations seeking to promote and advance the use of ODF,
hit back at Microsoft's claims. "ODF is a multi-vendor standard. It's
not designed with one vendor in mind, unlike OXML," Marino Marcich,
managing director of the ODF Alliance, told ZDNet UK. "ODF is designed
for use in both proprietary software, like Lotus Notes, and open-source
software, like OpenOffice, unlike OXML."

"OXML has one and only one implementation, and that's in Office 2007,"
Marcich continued. "The many different implementations of ODF mean
governments and other consumers have choice, and are not tied to the
upgrade path of one single vendor who already has 98 percent of the
marketplace. The idea of a standard is to allow different companies to
compete using that standard, not [to] put governments and organisations
on the treadmill of a single vendor."

OpenOffice, the open-source office-application suite, and an alternative
to Microsoft Office, is based on ODF. John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org
marketing project lead, also responded to Microsoft's claims that IBM
was interested in just one standard for everyone.


"That says it in a nutshell," McCreesh told ZDNet UK on Thursday. "The
whole purpose of having a standard is everyone is involved. Although
Microsoft was involved in Oasis [the body that developed ODF], it chose
not to adopt the standard, as it saw the project as an academic
exercise. What has surprised them is the number of European governments
that have mandated ODF — it's caught Microsoft on the back foot. ODF is
the international ISO standard — we would be delighted if Microsoft took
part in improving that standard."

Strange signalled that some kind of reconciliation could be possible.
"With ODF there are some things that I like — there's room for learning
from each other."

However, Microsoft criticised ODF for not having backwards compatibility
with Microsoft products. "ODF is not coming from the standpoint of
preserving previous documents, which is a bit like saying there's no
room for PDF if you have .doc," said Strange.

But the ODF Alliance's Marcich said that OXML itself is not compatible
with some Microsoft products. "Even for Microsoft, there's no such thing
as 100 percent backwards compatibility — it's not guaranteed in Office
2007," said Marcich. "So to say backwards compatibility is a weakness of
ODF is somewhat odd."

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-- 
  May your signals all trap                     Ditesh Kumar
May your references be bounded                ditesh at gathani.org
      All memory aligned                http://ditesh.gathani.org/blog
    Floats to ints rounded              http://www.openmalaysiablog.com