Analysts: Use Open XML, ODF only to make a statement
The Burton Group has published a refreshingly nonpartisan analysis of XML-based document standards and formats, recommending that large organizations use Microsoft's Open XML format over competing standards ODF in most cases.
The report, published on Monday and available for free, tries to cut through the highly charged political environment while recognizing the huge financial stake in document formats.
It concludes that organizations that already use Microsoft's Office should use the Office Open XML (OOXML) file formats which are the default in Office 2007.
The authors also predict that OOXML will gain significant market adoption, which will pose a greater competitive threat to most open-source vendors.
The OpenDocument Format, or ODF, will continue to have a market influence. ODF, which is the default file format of the open-source OpenOffice suite, has steadily seen growing interest from government customers concerned with long-term access to documents.
But Burton Group argues that choosing OpenOffice or ODF is done primarily as an anti-Microsoft move.
"For now ODF should be seen as more of an anti-Microsoft political statement than an objective technology selection," according to the report.
ODF, developed at the U.S. standards group OASIS, is an ISO standard, a significant certification to government customers.
Microsoft is in the process of trying to gain ISO ratification for OOXML, which has been certified a standard at Ecma International, another standards body. An important technical resolution meeting is scheduled to take place in late February, which will influence whether OOXML becomes an ISO standard or not.
Caveat
The authors say that the vendor support for ODF--backed by Novell, IBM, and Sun Microsystems--is primarily a competitive strategy to loosen Microsoft's influence on XML-based documents. It says that Sun, which created the OpenOffice open-source project, continues to be the primary influence on technical development.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has created OOXML for its own financial gain but also because it knows that standards and interoperability are vital to its acceptance among government customers.
The study does offer one important caveat: Microsoft needs to live up to its commitments to make OOXML a standard that includes input from other vendors and customers.
"If Microsoft abuses standards initiatives, the market response will be swift and severe," the study predicts.
Meanwhile, attorney and ODF advocate Andrew Updegrove said that the announcement on Monday of another European Union antitrust investigation of Microsoft could jeapordize its OOXML standards bid. Part of the investigation looks at whether the company's file formats are "sufficiently interoperable" with competing products, like ODF, Updegrove notes in his blog.
Not supporting ODF natively--relying instead on third-party projects--could be viewed as insufficient, he said.
"By sticking exclusively with OOXML, Microsoft has been pursuing a high risk, high wire act ever since ODF was adopted by Massachusetts in 2005. Today, it appears that this strategy just (became) riskier," Updegrove wrote.
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How can a "non-partisan" analysis ignore the fact that OOXML is, IIRC, 6000 pages long, and yet doesn't completely specify how to implement many tags?
> nonpartisan analysis of XML-based document
> standards and formats,
Really? Who paid the Burton Group to do this analysis? I highly doubt the Burton Group is some sort of charitable organization who did this report for the good of humankind.
It concludes that organizations that already use Microsoft's Office should use the Office Open XML (OOXML) file formats which are the default in Office 2007.
The authors also predict that OOXML will gain significant market adoption, which will pose a greater competitive threat to most open-source vendors..." Reading the subject line again; then, the re-engineered assumptions of "Office 2007" are that by this time Redmond's "ERR" Achilles Heels would have been history.
Funny thing. If you open a Word 2003 file in Word 2007, save it in OOXML format which is automatically zip compressed, then zip compress the original binary file from Word 2003, that compressed binary file is even smaller. Try it!
Does Burton know what it's talking about??? Is there any credibility to this report?
If a format is good on its own merits, why would it need such heavy lobbying?
Often in fact the analyst are both lazy and stupid. Not willing to do the research and not having any real knowledge of the subject matter.
Other than that there work is usually top notch.
Because the complete standard is contained in ONE decently sized document.
OOXML's document is 10 times longer and references other documents, most of which are proprietary.
MS can change OOXML at any time. Haven't people learned that letting a company hold your data hostage is very bad idea yet?
ODF will always be readable. You won't want to pay a ransom fee to any company.
And the #1 reason: OOXML is not a standard by any legitimate definition of the word.
"The only reason someone would use this standard is if they were a cat sniffer like Microsoft, or a cat sniffer wanabee."
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That was fun! I wonder if I can get someone to pay my new research group to prove that Coke is better than Pepsi?