Microsoft Pledges Real ODF Support in Office
|
News Analysis. Can people really change? What about companies? |
Those are the questions to ask about Microsoft's interoperability news. Because unless there's a catch, maybe Microsoft is serious about improving interoperability.
The news: Microsoft will provide with Office 2007 Service Pack 2 built-in support for: ODF (Open Document Format) 1.1, PDF 1.5, PDF/A and—not to be left out—the company's PDF-competitor XPS (XML Paper Specification). What's more, Microsoft is doing the work. Unlike current ODF translator development, Microsoft won't farm out the work.
Yesterday afternoon, May 20, I spoke with Microsoft General Manager for Interoperability & Standards Tom Robertson about who would do the translator work. I specifically asked if it would be Microsoft, to which he responded, "Yes." That's good enough for me.
But the third-party efforts won't go away. While Microsoft developers are charged with working out the ODF-to-OOXML (Office Open XML) kinks for Office 2007, third parties will have to continue their translation and conversion work for older versions.
Right now, Microsoft plans to deliver Office 2007 SP2 sometime during first half of 2009. Along with format support, accessible from the productivity suite's "save" menu, Microsoft also will provide new APIs so that other developers can more easily provide file format compatibility from within Office.
In a press statement, Marino Marcich, managing director of the ODF Alliance, batted a skeptical eye: "The proof will be whether and when Microsoft's promised support for ODF is on par with its support for its own format. Governments will be looking for actual results, not promises in press releases."
Results may not be easy or easily interpreted. File format compatibility is kind of like human language translation. There often isn't perfect fidelity, or ideal communication. Microsoft could make the sincerest effort possible without achieving full format fidelity with ODF.
"The formats are all different," Tom said. "They all have different characteristics. Users need to be well informed about the choices that they make."
Based on Microsoft's past behavior regarding file formats, I also am skeptical about the sincerity of the format support. It's telling that the third parties quoted in Microsoft's press release are partners. I would be more convinced by encouraging statements from, say, the ODF Alliance or OASIS.
Marino chided: "Microsoft continues to answer with a steady stream of promises ... Because Microsoft has a history of broken promises, no one should celebrate this news until we see what is actually done and how quickly it is put in place."
From Microsoft's perspective, these announcements demonstrate "greater transparency in the standards that we support in Office," Tom asserted. It's a claim that would be welcomed by many government agencies and businesses, if true.
Strangely, Marino interpreted Microsoft's support plans as example of ODF's success. "Clearly this announcement reflects the strong demand from customers worldwide, especially governments, for access to ODF, a truly universal, open standards-based file format," he said.
I wouldn't go that far. Marino rattles on about Microsoft promises, but they're not the only talking going on. I hear lots of noise about how great ODF is, but real-world support is shallow at best. Show me the money. I see ODF pocket change but no wallet full of cash like Office binary formats or even OOXML.
Ironically, about 15 minutes after I wrote the above paragraph, I got an e-mail saying New York state had issued a report, "A Strategy for Openness: Enhancing E-Records Access in New York State," supporting ODF. Funny, the Empire State distributed the report in PDF and Microsoft Word formats. That's what I call a ringing endorsement for ODF.
Microsoft is going to have to accept the skepticism, which is at least somewhat warranted by past behavior. Has Microsoft changed, or is this interoperability by PR? There is a little interoperability by PR buried in the press release about a topic Tom and I didn't discuss yesterday, presumably by oversight. I asked lots of ODF questions, and he interrupted his schedule at a trade show. The item: Microsoft won't "update," which presumably means support, ISO/IEC 29500 until the release of Office 2007's successor.
In early April, ISO (International Organization for Standardization) announced the ratification of OOXML as ISO/IEC 29500. But Microsoft made lots and lots of changes to get the votes for approval. Turns out, Office 2007 has big problems with ISO/IEC 29500, based on testing done by ISO's Griffin Brown. (To be fair, Griffin also found problems with ODF and its standards version, ISO/IEC 26300.)
That's quite the little atom bomb hidden in Microsoft's announcement. After putting up such a fight to get OOXML ratified as a standard, Office support for ISO/IEC 29500 is perhaps years away. What good is the standard, then, if the major productivity suite used pretty much everywhere has problems?
Microsoft plans to join the ISO working group responsible for ISO/IEC, which is good idea considering the state of Office 2007's support. "We will join the OASIS ODF technical committee," Tom said. If ISO ever opens a ODF committee, Microsoft would join that as well, he added. "We will be participating in ongoing maintenance of PDF," also.
I pressed Tom a bit about the OASIS ODF group, since Microsoft had rebuffed any dealings earlier. I also was curious if OASIS had any idea about Microsoft's intention to participate in the ODF working group. "We're in the process of joining this particular working group," he asserted. "We're going to do it immediately."
Is Tom making more "promises," as Marino might say? The answer depends on whether Microsoft really tries to join the OASIS group—and soon. Participation would be identifiable action, not a promise.
Microsoft plans to have its people be "active participants in all these formats," Tom said. Later, he emphasized: "These are steps that I think shows that we are sincere [about interoperability]."
I want to believe him.
Comments (13)
Transitioning to the Office 2007 XML formats is still a challenge. Many persons at my institution are running Office 2007 on their laptops or computers at home. But the lab PC's are still running Windows 2000 Professional and a combination of Office 2000, XP and 2003. This becomes a challenge when students who created files in Office 2007 try to open them on these PC's.
Of course its a form of unnecessary politics in the institution or technically lacking lab technicians still not understanding Microsoft has released "free" converters to make the computers compatible with Office 2007 files.
Posted by Andre Da Costa | May 21, 2008 10:37 PM
Joe, I think that it's not intended to be useful at all, and that it's merely going to be a strategic tool to help create more ODF "FUD", followed up by a big program to market MS-OOXML more aggressively:
(1) Deliver it late, and deliver a really BAD tool, which *intentionally* interprets any "unclear" parts of the ODF standard in a way which won't work with anybody else.
(2) Then, use these "failures" of the standard (and their own defective IMPLEMENTATION of the standard) to do more proprietary flag waving, "ODF sucks, that's why we needed to create a better standard for the world to use...."
(3) Then, allow their defective-by-intention "compatible" tool to die a slow and ugly death, lacking bugfixes and pretty quickly going completely out-of-date with respect to ODF standards.
(4) And, most important of all, make it impossible for anyone except Microsoft to fix the tool-- the license terms will almost certainly be horribly anti-Open, offering no Source code and probably not even allowing anyone to download or distribute the binary until they've accepted draconian license terms and submitted to all the WGA "Microsoft Update" stuff.
Unfortunately, yuo and I know darn well how "sincerely" Microsoft works on interoperability. Just look at Kerberos, or nearly any other standard which they've Embraced/Extended/Extinguished. I "want to believe him" too, but after 20 years of Microsoft tricks and cheats, he's got less credibility than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. The horrid, nasty packing of Committees and national voting organizations with incompetent "experts" to ram OOXML down everyone's throat, and the magical "approval" of comment responses which no one was even allowed to discuss, took place only two months ago-- have you forgotten this already? They haven't suddenly "turned a new leaf" in the last 8 weeks-- it's the same old Microsoft, a sweet-talking velvet glove with brass knuckles concealed on the inside.
The "approved standard" for OOXML **still** hasn't been officially published-- all these Microsoft-packed National Standards organizations voted for a "standard" which they couldn't possibly have even READ!
Microsoft does not desire to inter-operate on the basis of open, well-defined, and non-extendable standards. That's why their spokespersons use lawyerly weasel-words phrases like "These are steps that I think shows that we are sincere": They AREN'T sincere, but he's free to weasel out because he didn't actually say that they were-- he only said that he "thinks" it "shows" that they are.
I know that you need to stay on better terms with Microsoft than I need to, and you did a great job with this interview and article. I just felt compelled to point out how exactly how, and why, these promises really are EMPTY. There's no REAL change in Microsoft attitudes or behaviors since March, it's just more sneaky promises.
Posted by rickst29 | May 21, 2008 11:17 PM
If the native implementation of the odf file format in MS Office can be achieved in a timely manner and with acceptable results this is very good news indeed and a win for the user. I still think that 2 standards for the same thing generally are unescessary but the ISO Commitees thought differently about it and we'll have to deal with it. If this is to be realized anytime soon I might be tempted to buy an Office license to test interoperability, provided I can get MS Office running under WINE.
Posted by Thomas M | May 21, 2008 11:18 PM
Joe says; "Because unless there's a catch, maybe Microsoft is serious about improving interoperability."
One very big catch, in an otherwise very good article, Joe. But unless I missed it, you failed to discuss the "real" big reason for MS change of heart, although you did discuss a couple of smaller ones. The fact that the EU is investigating them on Office formats and their conduct on the ISO, and is fining MS big time is the main reason to try and preempt, the next EU court actions. MS knows their are guilty as sin, and is trying to get out of future penalties. And that is the end of the story, mostly.
Posted by chips | May 22, 2008 12:37 AM
As always blind as bat.
MS put OOXML up for standard approval and got it nicked its not longer under Microsoft Control.
So MS still does not have a ISO approved format. They have no option bar to add PDF and ODF. MS Office 2007 fails the OOXML validation tests. So MS Office 2007 does not produce valid OOXML.
MS lost that round. Now to stay in EU markets it needs a ISO approved format really soon.
Posted by oiaohm | May 22, 2008 2:12 AM
Joe, why is it that I can legitamitely show why Microsoft has such a BIG technology gap, but I get labeled as a spammer?
The two VCSY patents act as pivot points for key elements of Microsoft's continually degraded performance toward attempting to field Bill Gates' early XML vision. The vision has yet to see the light of day, although, for years prior to the granting of VCSY's SiteFlash patent 6826744 in November 2004, Microsoft was very energetic in demonstrating what they could do with XML, but still they have shown nothing.
Microsoft is well known for stealing the intellectual property of smaller companies and then muscling the smaller companies into extinction. There is a lawsuit currently under way that alleges Microsoft has used that typical tactic against Vertical Computer Systems (VCSY). The lawsuit concerns two VCSY patents (6826744 and 7076521) that VCSY used to derive products for the software market. VCSY products presage Microsoft products during the period when Bill Gates was touting Microsoft's XML vision back in 2001 onward.
You can learn much
http://ajaxamine.tripod.com/index.blog/1691183/copping-a-feel-and-blaming-it-on-the-cupholder/
Posted by I-Man | May 22, 2008 4:30 AM
Joe, get real! What is this about?
"Funny, the Empire State distributed the report in PDF and Microsoft Word formats."
First off, PDF serves a function different from DOC, OOXML and ODF. Usually it is used to publish documents that should be broadly readable, but not writable. In this sense it is a better format for New York State to use than any other read-write format.
Secondly, the DOC files are not XML either. That could be called "a ringing endorsement for OOXML" too. Simply put if you have an important message to send, then do so in the most compatible formats. This shows that .DOC files are still more popular than OOXML. Thus proving the need for the page you cite. So I ask, if everyone used open XML formats what would be the need for a strategy for openness by New York State?
Posted by Gerardo Tasistro | May 22, 2008 7:57 AM
@Joe, whatever happened to banning I-Man and his VCSY posts?
We wanted to believe your threats, we really did.
Posted by Buff Swami | May 22, 2008 8:04 AM
Another Microsoft promise. How is that newsworthy? The next shakeup in MS management will knock this one from the tree just as so many others have been.
Posted by Phil | May 22, 2008 8:10 AM
@ Andre
Whoa! File converters for Office? I am truly impressed. I will write that down in my library of truly useful IT tools.
Posted by JM | May 22, 2008 12:06 PM
The thing that scares me about Microsoft's move to join OASIS is that I'm wondering if the master plan is to participate as "actively" in OASIS as they did in ISO.
Posted by Anonymous | May 23, 2008 11:17 PM
Joe, get real! What is this about?
"Funny, the Empire State distributed the report in PDF and Microsoft Word formats." Thank You
Posted by seo | May 24, 2008 1:46 AM
Now we know why MSFT threw in with ODF.(By Portuno)
An appeal on OOXML standard status is beginning and OOXML could now conceivably be bottled up in debate for years.
South Africa Appeals OOXML Adoption
Friday, May 23 2008 @ 05:24 AM PDT
Contributed by: Admin
SABS, the National Body member of ISO/IEC JTC1 for South Africa, has filed a formal appeal with both ISO and IEC, challenging the Fast Track adoption of OOXML. With the filing of this formal appeal, DIS 29500 is now formally in limbo (i.e., cannot become an approved standard) until the appeal has been addressed.
---------------
??? Lost what? Is that another of your one-line zingers?
Microsoft is adopting ODF in MS Office because OOXML is in limbo now. Microsoft shareholders lost and that loss will show as MSFT is unable to wrestle government contracts from the likes of IBM and others who will use the ODF format as a club to beat Ballmer's intransigence-as-a-strategy senseless.
(Much more at url)
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_M/threadview?m=tm&bn=12004&tid=1390916&mid=1390924&tof=2&rt=1&frt=2&off=1
Posted by I-Man | May 24, 2008 4:12 AM