Happy New Year!

Those of you who know me, are probably aware that I worked in the State and Local Government vertical at Microsoft for a short period of time.  That period happened to coincide with the announcement of Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn's initiative to mandate the use of OpenDocument format (ODF) within Massachusetts state agencies.  This was a huge move and frankly I never understood it.  Whether or not I understood it, it caused my colleagues and myself a ton of pain.

Yes, I am a Microsoft employee and yes I have allegiance to Microsoft, but why would a politician push a document format?  I just could not relate.  Especially since after briefly reviewing ODF, I felt it was not sufficient to handle complex documents that we have grown used to. 

So I was thrilled to see the new report “What’s Up .Doc? ODF, Open XML and the Revolutionary Implications of XML in Productivity Applications.”  The full 40+ page document can be accessed on the Burton Group website here: http://www.burtongroup.com/Guest/Ccs/WhatsUpDoc.aspx

Some notable findings within the report:

· The report underscores the rationale for multiple document standards, stating that ODF and Open XML were developed out of different design considerations and priorities and therefore are not “interchangeable.”

· The authors describe Open XML as “considerably more expressive” and “more eco-system and application oriented” than ODF, citing its support for custom schema and full-fidelity round-tripping of documents created in Microsoft Office applications. The report predicts both on the basis of functionality supported and a rich ecosystem, Open XML will be more successful and “more pervasive” than ODF.

· Open XML adoption is projected to be widespread and swiftly fuelled by an ecosystem supporting Microsoft Office applications. In contrast, the report contends that ODF evolution will be “slow and complex”, largely on account of Sun’s ownership of OpenOffice.org, the primary implementation of ODF in the market.

· Examination of ODF leads the authors to conclude that ODF is “insufficient for real-world enterprise requirements” and its use will be limited to scenarios where there are no requirements around complex document modeling or document fidelity with Microsoft Office applications.

· Burton Group’s overarching recommendation is to exploit Open XML’s capabilities and use ODF “by exception rather than by default.”

So this is something completely different from what I work on everyday, but it is important to architects so that is why decided to blog about it.  If you are fighting a battle around ODF and Open XML, definitely check out this document.