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Office Open XML: Sounds Great, Less Fulfilling

Microsoft has been working to get its (OOXML) sanctified as an ISO standard, and the recent vote seems to indicate they've succeeded. But I wonder, what are the practical implications of OOXML being an ISO standard?

Certainly Microsoft thought that ISO certification was important. They were reportedly willing to resort to bribery to make sure that OOXML made it over the hump. However, an ISO seal of approval isn't the ultimate goal. Only true interoperability between products can make a standard real, and OOXML still seems far from being able to do that. Think about where the HTML and EcmaScript/JavaScript standards are right now -- several iterations of mature specifications combined with multiple independent vendor implementations -- and you can see how far OOXML has to go.

In February, Microsoft announced an open-source project that turns binary Office documents into OOXML. This could be a valuable reference implementation of the standard for third-party vendors, especially since it's BSD-licensed. Yet the site doesn't appear to have much activity, even though the first milestone was supposed to be reached this month. Now that OOXML seems to be a standard, will Microsoft push forward with the project, or was it primarily made to provide justification for an affirmative ISO vote?

The controversy around this whole certification circus probably doesn't hurt Microsoft that much. The people who already don't think highly of Microsoft will simply have their feelings reinforced. Those who support Microsoft, or are simply pragmatic about wanting to get hold of Office file formats, will be happy about the outcome. It seems like ISO comes out for the worse here; if the industry loses confidence in the overall standards-setting process, we're in for a whole lot more turmoil in the future.

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