Microsoft to support ODF?

May 21 2008

Bob Sutor is referecing an SD Times article which indicates that Microsoft is planning to support the ISO-approved Open Document Format 1.1 and join the OASIS technical committee.  

Wow.  As I run out the door to the airport, I wanted to at least capture the news.  This is a validation and big win for customers, and means that products like Lotus Symphony are now even stronger options in the market -- customers no longer have to wonder, "will I be able to interoperate with my customers/partners/suppliers?"

The SD Times story says the ODF support will come around the same time as any implementation of the officially-approved version of Microsoft's own Open XML format.  So, at some point in 2009, it looks like customers will really get to a point of choice and flexibility -- with Microsoft as a leader.

I have to say I'm not as practiced at writing blog entries like this one as the last many I've written on OOXML "versus" ODF :-)

For customers expecting an ISO-conformant Office Open XML (OOXML) in Microsoft Office, the wait will continue: Microsoft will not implement the standardized version of its own document format until Office 14 ships. Meanwhile, a service pack due in 2009 is expected to expand the formats supported by Office 2007.

Today, Microsoft announced that it was making new commitments to document interoperability within its Office product line for Windows. Office 2007 Service Pack 2 will add native support for OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.1, PDF 1.5, PDF/A and XML Paper Specification, an XML-based fixed-document format created by Microsoft.

Microsoft did not say in the announcement whether the Macintosh editions of Office would support any additional document formats. Office 2004 for Mac still lacks a full implementation of the Ecma 376 version of OOXML that Microsoft introduced with Office 2007.

In a surprise move, the company also announced that it intends to participate in the OASIS ODF working group and the corresponding ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 Subcommittee 34 working groups for ODF, as well as the ISO Technical Committee 171 working group for PDF, said Doug Mahugh, senior product manager for Microsoft Office.

Link: Bob Sutor: Microsoft says they will support ODF natively, join OASIS ODF committee? >
Link: SD Times: Office 2007 won't support ISO's OOXML  >

Ed Brill Kansas City, MO USA Category:  Microsoft  Add/View Comments [19]

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  1. 1  Flemming Riis  | 5/21/2008 1:46:06 PM

    -For customers expecting an ISO-conformant Office Open XML (OOXML) in Microsoft Office, the wait will continue:

    if thats true they are nuts.

  1. 2  Henry Ferlauto http://www.geniusinside.com | 5/21/2008 1:53:52 PM

    Ed - How about a brief update on Symphony itself? What's coming down the pike with ND 8.5? A little beyond?

  1. 3  Stephen http://notes2self.net | 5/21/2008 2:28:48 PM

    Nice post Ed, you should develop this style :-)

    One small correction, ODF 1.1 is an OASIS standard not ISO.

  1. 4  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 5/21/2008 2:51:04 PM

    Ed, here is the official press release:

    { Link }

    And yes, that is me quoted in it. I think this is a great move by Microsoft. It allows the customer to make the choice on what software to use.

  1. 5  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 5/21/2008 3:34:58 PM

    @2 expect some Symphony announcements next week :-)

  1. 6  Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 5/21/2008 4:18:26 PM

    I guess throwing eggs at monkey boy does work.

  1. 7  Ian White http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/IT-collaboration-technology-blog/ | 5/21/2008 5:28:04 PM

    I wonder what Cliff will say?

  1. 8  Randy Shimizu  | 5/22/2008 12:50:52 AM

    I am wondering if this simply a fallback position for MS until things calm down and Office14 arrives. Micorosoft has already shown that they can force companies to adopt OOXML.

  1. 9  Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 5/22/2008 2:55:00 AM

    Umm. So lets see. They write a really bad import/export to ODF 1.1 tool for Office. And their users go 'Well, I've tried it and it sucks'. Guess who gets the blame..

    ---* Bill

  1. 10  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 5/22/2008 7:17:17 AM

    { Link }

    Do you really think customers are going to be allowed to win here? I'm trying to think of the last time Microsoft permitted openness in their product line to the true advantage of their customers. The TCP/IP stack implementation in Windows 95 and NT 3.1, perhaps? I suppose one could argue that the DHTML implementation in IE4 was adherence to an external standard that truly helped customers, (Netscape was a train wreck in those days) but I think the aftermath of that move is pretty clear in the interoperability nightmare that is IE7 today.

    Stephane Rodriguez { Link } puts forth the idea that with ODF 1.2 around the corner, there's never been a more strategic moment for MSFT to announce support for ODF 1.1. What would be the effect of increasing the population of ODF 1.1 documents by an order of magnitude while throwing a wrench into the completion of ODF 1.2? Do you think there will be a legacy representation problem? I can't see how there wouldn't be. Especially if MSFT's "native" support for ODF includes a bunch of proprietary extensions to support some of the quite excellent application-level features of the Office 2007 suite.

  1. 11  John Head  | 5/22/2008 7:32:28 AM

    @9 Bill, I wouldn't bet against MS on the odf support being bad here ... I know personally it is good. All I can say.

    @10 Nathan, they are adding 1.2 support in Office 14. Not sure if that was clear. So Office 2007 SP2 will add ODF 1.1 and Office 14 will add IS29500 and ODF 1.2. So yes, the customer is really the winner here.

    But you are correct, the real question is how will Office handle all the stuff it does in ODF 1.1, when there is quite a bit in Excel that is not supported. That is yet to be seen.

  1. 12  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 5/22/2008 8:17:26 AM

    @11 - There is absolutely no mention of ODF 1.2 in Microsoft's press release { Link } in spite of their mention of IS29500 being supported in Office 14. So you must be getting that from your super-secret ultra-privileged MSFT inside sources.

    What MSFT did announce is that they're joining the OASIS TC for ODF, which means, depending on their level of commitment to that organization, they'll be shaping the definition of ODF 1.2. It is extremely difficult to envision their contribution to that group being an honest and forthright one. One pretty much has to shove aside the experience of two decades of MSFT business practices.

    But hey... money talks, right? :-)

  1. 13  Sean Jennings  | 5/22/2008 9:15:08 AM

    remember what happened previously when Microsoft has decided to adopt technology not invented in-house; I believe the description of their strategy was summed-up as "embrace, extend, extinguish"

  1. 14  Donnie Baker  | 5/22/2008 11:45:00 AM

    It's a good thing I was wearing my baggy pants when I read this post, 'cuz before I was even halfway thru, the monkeys started flying out of my butt.

  1. 15  Brian Green  | 5/22/2008 1:31:13 PM

    Openness is not good for Microsoft. It's hard to believe they would fully support the ODF formats. It's far more likely they will support it "just enough" to make it an unreliable format.

    Thinking back, one of their biggest blunders was adding XMLHttpRequest to IE5. That's how today's AJAX works (think Google Maps). In hindsight Microsoft would never have done that.

  1. 16  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 5/22/2008 2:41:55 PM

    @11: I imagine it will be analogous to what happens when you open an Excel 2007 sheet with field-level protection in Mac Office 2008: you get a dialog saying "oops, there are some unsupported features in this doc". Not exactly the best story.

    @15: I call shenanigans on that. I think the folks at MS knew *exactly* what they were doing with XmlHttpRequest. They used it for Outlook Web Access 2000, which was arguably the first real mass-market AJAX application. Now, here we are 8 years later and the W3C standard is still a draft. And you wonder why vendors are sometimes impatient with the standards process!

  1. 17  Giulio  | 5/23/2008 1:28:05 AM

    @11 sums it up quite well. It has yet to be seen. I think the general community will believe when we see it. I, for one, hope they will support it effectively.

    Unfortunately MS' has created enough suspicion and bad blood that makes it difficult to take MS' word on much of late.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=S30WdoEHCH4

  1. 18  Lewis Turek  | 5/23/2008 4:13:18 AM

    Very interesting article on BBC (in the UK) website covering this: { Link }

    Key quote from Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe...

    "There will be full choice on the desktop; people could switch to Linux and choose Open Office or other applications that support ODF, like Lotus Symphony or Google Docs."

  1. 19  Jim  | 5/28/2008 10:53:15 AM

    To paraphrase Jerry Maguire:

    "Show Me the Code!"