Brian Jones: Open XML Formats

john.mullinax — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:38:39 GMT

In case you missed it, ISO has approved Open XML as a standard. Brian Jones has more here. What does this mean? Well, among other things it means that the next version of Office ("Office 14" is the inspiring code name) will use an ISO standard as it's native file format. And going forward, the evolution of the format will be managed through ISO. Office file formats have not always been open, but have been a defacto standard for years. Opening the file formats and making Open XML an official document format standard shifts control to Microsoft customers and the national standards bodies that make up ISO.

Microsoft has long supported partners building on Office as a platform, and this continues to be true. Hopefully, making the format specification open and independently managed will give customers and third party solution providers an even greater level of confidence and certainty when directly implementing the standard themselves -- for example by programmatically creating, reading, and manipulating Open XML documents.

Similar in spirit, you might also be interested in Microsoft's "Open Specification Promise".

On a personal note, as I travel around and meet with customers and partners, people often say things to me like "Microsoft has changed in the last few years -- you guys are more open, humbler, and better at listening to customers and partners." I love hearing this, and hope that things like supporting ISO standardization for OXML, OSP, our collaboration with Novell/SuSE and Miguel de Icaza around Mono, the WS-* work, implementing part of the CLR on multiple platforms for Silverlight, etc, will help us keep moving in the right direction. :-)

Technorati Tags: Office XML,ISO,OSP,Microsoft

The point of ISO standardization of Office file formats...

john.mullinax — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:52:50 GMT

Most of the debate around ISO standardization of Open Office XML file formats -- the native file format of Office 2007 -- is terribly acrimonious and FUD-filled. For a different and interesting take on the debate, see here. Why interesting? The blog makes argues that the point of of ISO standardization is to actually take control of OXML away from Microsoft and place it in the public domain -- something important to society given how many people use Office.

Rob seems to be under the impression that ISO-approval is some kind of quality badge of honor that you can proudly carry around. First of all, I think we can all agree that ODF itself is a clear example that ISO-approval not necessarily implies quality, interoperability and clearness. Secondly, how the specification was made is not the first priority when talking ISO-approval. The first priority should be:

We need to take control of OOXML out of the hands of Microsoft and back into society as a whole

This was imho the focal point of Patrick Durusau's support of DIS 29500 approval. Amongst other things he said that

Patrick Durusau: The cost of rejection is that ordinary users, governments, smaller interests, all lose a seat at the table where the next version of the Office standard is being written (bold emphasis from original post).

Technorati Tags: OXML,Office,ISO

Beyond | IT : ISO

Brian Jones: Open XML Formats

The point of ISO standardization of Office file formats...