All eyes on how Microsoft pulls off ODF support

Microsoft says the details are clear.

"None of this means anything unless you deliver interoperability," says Tom Robertson, general manager of interoperability and standards at Microsoft. "This is not just shipping the translator; this is support in Office 2007 for ODF 1.1."

Robertson said Office 2007 Service Pack 2 will let users natively open, edit and save documents using ODF and save documents into XPS and PDF formats from within Office applications. The service pack also will allow ODF to be set as the default file format for Office 2007.

A translator, however, will be used to support ODF in Office 2003, XP and 2000.

Robertson said Microsoft will actively participate in the ISO working group maintaining ISO 29500, the OOXML standard, and join the ODF working group at the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), both of which he called further proof of Microsoft's commitment.

Some say Microsoft should have joined the OASIS group when it formed in 2003 and now finds itself coming full circle after a battle at the ISO that resulted in a lot of bad PR.

Andy Updegrove, a lawyer, Linux Foundation board member and author of the Consortiuminfo.org's Standards blog calls the ISO process to standardize OOXML a "pyrrhic victory," a hollow victory gained at too high a cost.

"Microsoft got through the battle and it's 'we won, now what?' Well 'now what?' turned out to be 'so what.' " What did they gain; it appears that for a couple of years at least they have not gained anything. And a five-year strategy [to dodge] ODF has failed."

Regardless, Updegrove says he is encouraged by Microsoft's willingness to support ODF and says some good has come out of OOXML standardization process.

"It has demonstrated that the traditional ISO process is clearly not up to modern challenges and if it is going to continue to be relevant at a minimum it needs a rules overhaul for the tough situations [like OOXML]. And second, it has made the public aware of the fact that open standards are as important as open source, open development, open content, open research and that these things have a bigger meaning than just vendor to vendor."