Microsoft Gets Behind ODF

By Greg McNevin

May 21, 2007: Not long after hinting at the possibility it will take on the open source community over patent violations, Microsoft has given its support to the addition of Open Document Format to the list of business standards run by The American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

While the company said it will continue to push for OpenXML’s (its own open format) inclusion on the list also, it has decided to support ODF as a standard as businesses want interoperability and choice.

“We see ODF serving a different need than other document format standards that exist in the market, such as the Ecma Open XML formats,” said Tom Robertson, Microsoft’s general manager for Interoperability & Standards in a written statement. “The Open XML formats, for example, were designed to enable people to work with the billions of existing Office documents and to support user defined schema.

“ODF, while also based on XML, was designed to support the functionality provided by the OpenOffice and StarOffice products. So there are some important differences in what the formats can do, and we think it’s important to let customers choose whatever format they prefer to use,” added Robertson.

Despite its claims for interoperability, some analysts see Microsoft as acting somewhat schizophrenically, one moment issuing thinly veiled threats and the next openly declaring its support.

“On the one hand, Microsoft is saying 'Nice standard you've got there’, while on the other hand, warning 'implement it if you dare, but only for a price’,” noted Gesmer Updegrove LLC attorney and open standards advocate Andrew Updegrove according to Pcadvisor.co.uk.

While it could indeed be publicly hedging its bets, the popularity of ODF is increasing by the day. It is being adopted by government agencies around the world and has already been approved as an ISO standard. OpenXML on the other hand is currently awaiting a vote on its ISO status.

The more support behind ODF the better. But one has to wonder, with Microsoft getting behind the format, does it have a knife in its hand?

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