Partisans are debating whether the modifications to the
Open XML specification are enough to win it recognition as an
international standard.
The war of words between Microsoft,
IBM
and others with an interest in document formats has reached a boiling point
ahead of the crucial vote later this month on whether or not Microsoft's Office
Open XML format should be approved as an
ISO
standard.
The format
failed to achieve the two-thirds vote needed for approval
as an international standard by the International Organization for
Standardization in September.
That was followed by a ballot resolution meeting in
Geneva
this February, designed to find consensus on modifications to the document in
light of the comments made by the national bodies that voted.
The question now is whether those modifications have persuaded enough
of the national bodies to support the publication of the specification as a
standard.
Microsoft fired off the first volley, with Chris Capossela, senior vice
president for Microsoft Office, releasing an
open letter March 16 in which he said the Open XML standard
under consideration by the
ISO/IEC has been
significantly improved as a result of global feedback and consideration.
He also appears to assume that the specification is
headed for approval later this month, saying, "We've
listened to the global community and learned a lot, and we are committed to
supporting the Open XML specification that is approved by
ISO/IEC
in our products."
That led to a
sharp retort March 19 from Ed Brill, an
IBM
business unit executive and worldwide sales leader for Lotus Notes, who accused
Microsoft of trying to appear "the good guys" in its efforts to take a "heavily
modified version of the Office 2007 document formats and get it rubber-stamped
as an international standard."
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Brill also took issue with Caposella's claim in the open letter that Novell,
Corel, Apple,
IBM, Sun and others have
already adopted, or announced adoption of, Open XML in their products on a
variety of platforms-including Linux, Windows, the Mac operating system, the Palm
operating system, Java and .Net.
"This hits at one of the core issues of the Office Open XML saga that I have
been highlighting for months. Microsoft claims that the Office 2007 document
formats equals Ecma Open XML and therefore that
IBM's
announced support for Office 2007 document formats in a few products equals
support for the format.
IBM doesn't support
Ecma Open XML. But whoever expects Microsoft to be clear communicators?"
he said in a blog post.
Earlier in the week, Bob Sutor,
IBM's
vice president of standards and open source, also made it quite clear that the
company
is completely opposed to having Office Open XML become an
ISO
standard.
"
IBM is opposed to this specification
becoming a JTC1 [
ISO/IEC] standard because
it was developed in a non-open manner, is ridiculously large, is technically
inferior, and emerged from the Ballot Resolution Meeting with most things not
explicitly resolved and more questions than ever before. So just in case you
were wondering, now you know," he said in a blog post.
Peter Galli has been a financial/technology reporter for 12 years at leading publications in South Africa, the UK and the US. He has been Investment Editor of South Africa's Business Day Newspaper, the sister publication of the Financial Times of London.He was also Group Financial Communications Manager for First National Bank, the second largest banking group in South Africa before moving on to become Executive News Editor of Business Report, the largest daily financial newspaper in South Africa, owned by the global Independent Newspapers group.
He was responsible for a national reporting team of 20 based in four bureaus. He also edited and contributed to its weekly technology page, and launched a financial and technology radio service supplying daily news bulletins to the national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which were then distributed to some 50 radio stations across the country.
He was then transferred to San Francisco as Business Report's U.S. Correspondent to cover Silicon Valley, trade and finance between the US, Europe and emerging markets like South Africa. After serving that role for more than two years, he joined eWeek as a Senior Editor, covering software platforms in August 2000.
He has comprehensively covered Microsoft and its Windows and .Net platforms, as well as the many legal challenges it has faced. He has also focused on Sun Microsystems and its Solaris operating environment, Java and Unix offerings. He covers developments in the open source community, particularly around the Linux kernel and the effects it will have on the enterprise.
He has written extensively about new products for the Linux and Unix platforms, the development of open standards and critically looked at the potential Linux has to offer an alternative operating system and platform to Windows, .Net and Unix-based solutions like Solaris.
His interviews with senior industry executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the Linux operating system, Sun CEO Scot McNealy, and Bill Zeitler, a senior vice president at IBM.
For numerous examples of his writing you can search under his name at the eWEEK Website at www.eweek.com.
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