OOXML or ODF: Which One Will Survive?

Against the backdrop of the same old Open Source vs Paid debate, two formats are vying for global acceptance from ISO in the office suite space

Friday, November 02, 2007

Even as the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD battle is heading to its logical conclusion (of co-existence or the lack of it), another format war has reached its crescendo – the war of office suite formats. Microsoft recently approached the International Standards Organization (ISO) for a fast-track decision on the adoption of its format, which is used by Office 2007, as a certified global format. ISO, which has already ratified the Open Document Format (ODF) as a standard, announced on September 5th that Microsoft's format, the Open Office XML (OOXML) failed to get a 'resounding yes' from its panel consisting of technology companies and all the UN member nations.

Wait and watch
The final ratification of OOXML as a standard by the ISO will now have to wait till February next year, when the ISO will hold a ballot resolution meeting and Microsoft will be asked to address and counter the concerns, apprehensions and brickbats put forward by various participating countries. In other words, Microsoft has about six months to beef up the OOXML format to suit international standards and gather more support.

Microsoft has already started its endeavor to mend the biggest flaw of OOXML– interoperability. It has undertaken to beef up its partnership with vendors to tackle interoperability issues in design, technology and standardization. It has also announced a continuing collaboration with AOL and Yahoo! for instant messaging, and Novell for virtualization applications, besides the creation of what it calls the Interoperability Vendor Alliance. But its biggest achievement in this regard is said to be the successful deployment of what it calls the Open XML Translator, essentially a combination of tools that allow translation between ODF based applications and OOXML formats, the source code for which is available under what is called a BSD license. Having got its roots from Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD represents a family of free-for-use software licenses worldwide.

Divided supporters
While HP, Intel, EMC, Sony Electronics, Apple and Lexmark International have come out strongly in support of Microsoft, Oracle and IBM continue to support ODF. Germany and the US voted in favor of Microsoft, while Britain and France voiced a clear 'no' but were open to supporting Microsoft in future if 'vital modifications' are incorporated in the OOXML structure. India preferred to follow this argument, though initially it went all out against Microsoft. As expected, the technical institutions, IITs and IIMs are completely in support of ODF, and believe that the OOXML is not 'open' enough to be certified as a global standard, as it doesn't represent a common ground across products. They argue that ODF has originated through a process of evolution and right since its inception, it has been completely 'vendor neutral'.

Growth of ODF
ODF is the brainchild of Sun Microsystem's OpenOffice, formerly known as Star Office, started off in 1999 by Star Division, as an attempt to build a non-proprietary XML-based interoperable office suite. A year later, Sun Microsystems acquired Star Division and for the next two years, all it did was to invite source codes through an open-to-all licensing mechanism. An XML community project was also embarked upon, and the two finally united in December 2002, at an OASIS (Organization for Advancement of Structured Information Standards) conference, where the arrival of ODF was formally upheld.

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