Woowar

It seems that Microsoft is attempting to turn the whole debate around ODF vs OOXML into a schoolyard you-can't-be-my-friend-if-you-want-to-be-his-friend argument, by characterising the entire debate as a side-with-Microsoft-or-side-with-IBM decision. A particularly impressive form of weasel words is "If it was not for IBM, it would have been business as usual for this standard" - hmm, let me see, yes of course it's perfectly normal for a single-vendor proposal with an almost total absence of secondary support to be rushed through the standards recognition process in an immature form as a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that there's already an accepted standard which is better and more open but is likely to hurt aforesaid vendor's revenue. That kind of "business as usual". My heart bleeds.

(Of course, this approach of manipulating the nature of the debate is hardly unprecedented: Microsoft was highly successful in foisting their inferior email technology (Outlook/Exchange) on the world, by successfully backing IBM Lotus into a corner where the entire debate became centred on the question of which email client was prettier (Outlook wins - or did then), and not about overall product capabilities (Notes/Domino wins), scalability (Notes/Domino wins), relability (Notes/Domino wins), performance (okay, possibly a draw), cost of ownership (Notes/Domino wins once you consider the whole package, and it's pretty much a draw in an email-only comparison), and platform independence (Microsoft don't even TRY to compete on this one). The world having finally caught up with the idea that collaboration is about more than just email, and IBM having finally (!!) caught up with the idea that people like their software to look nice and be easy to use, hopefully the nature of that old Outlook/Exchange vs Notes/Domino debate has changed for good.)

Back to the point...

In adopting this ludicrously simplistic posture, Microsoft will again of course generate plenty of positive media coverage (something at which Microsoft is, undoubtedly, a world leader - for instance look at the way the BBC toadies up to them as though the sun shines out of Gates' bottom-crack), but they are doing all of us a grave disservice in a number of ways.

Firstly, there's the obvious benefit of a globally accepted standard document format: unencumbered flow of information; deep integration between different software tools; ability to choose the most appropriate software for the job; permanance of record-keeping; etc etc

Secondly, if over the next few years there were to be a significant switch from the expensive Microsoft Office product lines to free or inexpensive ODF-based products (e.g OpenOffice, Symphony), that would have the potential to free up countless millions of dollars/pounds/yen/euros of public funding to do something actually useful. Of course, there may be a challenge to meet in renegotiating licensing agreements with Microsoft, but eventually they would have to crumble. So in a very direct funding-for-healthcare-and-education way, this battle is an important milestone.

Yes, some organisations would stick with MS Office once they backed down and incorporated proper ODF support. But two things would happen:
(a) Microsoft would not support it fully anyway, because lock-in is in their blood
(b) budget holders would start asking serious questions about the business value that Office provides given that many of their peers successful use other cheaper/free alternatives.

Next, we've all been living for too long with Microsoft's prediliction for pointless and incompatible file format changes, and their utter lack of regard for backward compatibility. Instead of fixing core problems in the products (outline numbering in Word? - it STILL sucks), the focus has been on making the products appear 'new and improved' by introducing a completely different, non-standard and for the large part infuriating new user interface. So ... when I read a quote like this:

Microsoft disagrees with much of the criticism and contends that OOXML is necessary because ODF lacks support for features that are used in Microsoft Office and cannot be adapted to provide clean backwards-compatibility with documents that are already in Microsoft's binary formats.

Finally, Microsoft has become deeply arrogant, resembling the how-dare-you-even-question-us-we-are-who-we-are attitude that got IBM into so much trouble some years back. If Microsoft were to take a bit of a tumble - not a complete collapse, but relatively trying times with a few layoffs and some business units and products (Zune!) being put to the sword - that would force them to concentrate rather more on innovation and less on market manipulation. In turn that would be beneficial all round in making an organisation which undoubtedly harbours some impressive talent and genuine excellence to stop behaving like a playground bully and start getting along with the other kids.

Rejection of OOXML would be a bitter pill for Microsoft to swallow. But it is medicine that Redmond needs, and would actually be beneficial for Microsoft, and all of us, in the long term.