ntouk.com - Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog

So today ISO has confirmed that the Open XML file formats have become an ISO standard, after days of speculation and rumour. Open XML thus joins the ranks of HTML, PDF and ODF as official ISO document standards. This is an important day for those many governments, customers and partners (including key UK national interests, such as the British Library) who asked for these file formats to become an ISO standard.

I still find it peculiar that the standardisation of the Open XML file formats became such a vexed issue for some commercial interests, such as IBM and Google. After all, for years Governments and Open Source advocates had asked Microsoft to open up the Microsoft Office file formats.

And that is what has happened.

It's been disappointing to see some of the derogatory attacks on both individuals and organisations made by those who opposed the standardisation of Open XML. When it became clear to those opponents that national standards bodies such as the UK's BSI would focus exclusively on the technical issues and not the emotional politics and commercial pressures they sought to apply they too became targets to be denigrated.

Some of these opponents clearly can't accept the fact that Microsoft has once again listened to its users, turned on a sixpence, and moved on, further embracing interoperability principles of openness and choice. I suspect they never believed that Microsoft would pass over control of such important file formats: but we did. Just one of many real measures being taken to show that we are serious about interoperability.

I remain genuinely baffled as to why some parts of IBM and its supporters invested so much effort in trying to block the standardisation of these important file formats, to the extent that they clearly felt it worth alienating large numbers of their customers and partners who had asked Microsoft to relinquish control of these file formats in the first place. The attempt to use the earlier standardisation of ODF to manipulate markets (by seeking Government mandates that only ISO approved document formats could be used in the public sector) was a shallow, cheap abuse of what standards are there for.

One of the biggest myths (of many!) is that Open XML is only available through Microsoft Office. I blogged some time ago that in fact it was cross-platform and being widely adopted (including across Linux, the Mac OS, Palm OS, and Windows and with support from companies as diverse as Apple, Corel, Sun Microsystems and Novell) but never let the facts get in the way of a good flame mail. In terms of platforms and applications that are already using Open XML, here's an incomplete list.

• iWork 08
• iPhone
• Mac OS X Quick view, TextEdit
• Dataviz MacLinkPlus Deluxe version 16
• DOCX convertor for the Mac
• docx to html & docx to RTF Konverter
• Microsoft Office for Mac 2008
• Neo Office 2.1
• Sun Open XML import filter for spreadsheets
• Word Counter 2.2.1
• Gnumeric open source Spreadsheet
• Open Office Novell, Ubuntu
• Open XML translator for OpenOffice
• Palm OS Dataviz DocumentsToGo
• Docx2Doc Web Service
• DOCX convertor on Palm handheld devices
• OpenXML4J - Open XML framework for Java
• PHPExcel - Web Development (PHP)
• QuickOffice (Symbian)
• ThinkFree Office
• Adobe InDesign
• Adobe Buzzword
• Altsoft XML2PDF server 2007
• AltViewer documents preview
• Altova XML Spy
• Corel WordPerfect Office X3
• DataWatch Monach v9.0 DOCX to RTF
• Google search
• Panergy docXconverter
• Madcap Flare
• Microsoft Office 2000
• Microsoft Office XP
• Microsoft Office 2003
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1
• Mindjet's MindManager
• Nuance Omnipage 16
• ODF-Converter
• OOX-UOF Converter
• Open XML Translator
• PythonOffice (Python API to read & write Excel documents)
• Word 2007 Map Editor for Mindjet MindManager
• Xpertdoc Studio 2007 reporting solution
• IBM Lotus Quickr
• IBM Websphere Portal
• IBM DB2 Content Manager v8.4
• IBM DB2 9 pureXML
• Zamzar, Zoho Writer
• (... you get the idea ...)

I hope those who earlier championed ODF through the standards process, ignoring technical comments from standards bodies about areas that needed improvement, and then sought to persuade Governments to mandate its exclusive use will have serious cause for reflection. Could these really be the same people that for years have argued against a single, monopolistic file format? Why then did they seek to impose their own single file format on a world where multiple formats and standards have always and will always exist?

ODF is a worthy ISO standard, I've always made that quite clear: but so too is Open XML. Both have their place (as indeed do other formats such as PDF and China's UOF) and users will decide which they want to utilise - which is entirely as it should be.

The more mud, FUD and hatred that opponents of independent control and maintenance of the Open XML file formats threw at the process, the more they alienated national standards bodies who, from what I have seen, have stuck resolutely and calmly to going through their technical concerns and dedicating countless hours to resolving them to their satisfaction. That is surely what standards should be about? In fact, it can easily be argued that given the unprecedented scrutiny and revisions that Open XML was subjected to, it is probably one of the best specifications ever to emerge from the standards process and has been much improved by this serious, professional scrutiny.

Hopefully we can now all move on. And hopefully those who sought to use the standards process to impose their own commercial views on the world will abandon the attempt to abuse standardisation in this way ever again. It has been a spectacle unbecoming the industry. But at least today is a day when those who count - users, governments, partners and customers everywhere - can celebrate the fact that their voice has been heard and acted upon: and that these important file formats are now under the independent control of ISO.

Technorati tags: XML standards ISO Open XML ODF interoperability Microsoft technology policy