Lobbying Could Cause Legal Trouble for Microsoft

Rob Isn't Weird writes "In the wake of the exposure of Microsoft's attempt to buy Sweden's vote on OOXML and Sweden's annulment of that vote due to irregularities, IBM's Rob Weir points out that the fiasco could cause anti-trust worries for Microsoft. He quotes ALLIED TUBE & CONDUIT CORP. v. INDIAN HEAD, INC., 486 U.S. 492 (1988), which says 'What petitioner may not do (without exposing itself to possible antitrust liability for direct injuries) is bias the process by, as in this case, stacking the private standard-setting body with decision makers sharing their economic interest in restraining competition.'"

Comments

The trap continues, even for their own formats.

[Erris]

Sure but nothing will actually support it, and those products that do support it will support it in a half-baked, crippled way. MS always used to make sure Word could read WordPerfect documents perfectly, but couldn't create them worth a darn. Expect this type of behavior to continue.

Office 2007 does not even have working support of older M$ formats. Footnote numbering is broken if you save OOXML to WORD.DOC and macros are broken between versions of Excel. I expect to hear similar things powerpoint and other formats as a few foolish people around me continue their Office 2007 trial. As usual, data goes in but does not come out and you can't really co-operate with people who are not on the same point release.

This is stunning behavior, even for M$. A reasonable XML format should support all previous version behavior perfectly because the internal representation does not have to change. The transition should be easier than any previous M$ Office "upgrade" but it is in fact worse than others. For all of their bluster, they have not lived up to the 6,000 pages of specs they are now trying to force on the world as an ISO standard. Un-Fucking-Believable.