Microsoft Standing Firm On OOXML ISO Vote

christian.einfeldt writes "Microsoft has responded via the industry trade group ECMA to some of the thousands of criticisms of its submission of Office Open XML as an ISO standard. Open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver takes a look at those responses to see if Microsoft has made significant changes in either the substance of OOXML or the manner in which the OOXML specification will be maintained going forward. Ossendryver concludes that Microsoft's position has not significantly changed, but only hardened in place in advance of the Ballot Resolution Meeting which is to occur from February 25 through 29 in Geneva. While no one can say for certain whether Microsoft will succeed in having OOXML win the nod from the international community, Ossendryer thinks that Microsoft's firm stance is likely to backfire."

Comments

Re:well...

[MightyMartian]

This isn't about saving documents. Everyone in the office is required to save in Office 2003 formats. It's about incoming documents. I can hardly influence the electronic document policies of outside companies, agencies and individuals, and since my job isn't as Head IT Dictator For Life, I'm bound to make my coworkers' computer experience as easy and trouble-free as possible. If I stand on principle about refusing to install the Compatibility Pack because OOXML is a crappy, proprietary document format that isn't even compliant with horrid ECMA OOXML standard, I'll lose my job. I support Open Source everywhere I can, and as I said in another post, when Evolution reaches a point of interoperability with Exchange that I feel comfortable with, I'll gladly recommend OO.org. I will, however, still have to give some ability for my coworkers to open docx files, because they're out there and getting more common.