Today sees the significant announcement that Open
XML is being submitted to the ECMA and ultimately ISO to become a formal
open standard. Open XML is used by Microsoft Office and in the next
release, (Office 12), it also becomes the default file format (rather
than the existing Office binary files).
As a result of this move, everyone will be able to save their files in a
format that is a recognised open standard. This will help to meet the
wider needs of electronic document records management and national
archive requirements. Adaptors will be made available for earlier
releases of Office (back to Office 2000) to ensure that users can
continue to exchange Office documents without any loss of the high
degree of interoperability that has long been taken for granted.
I’ve been highly supportive of this decision throughout all the
discussions and thinking that have led up to this moment. Many UK public
sector organisations and individuals have been asking about our thinking
on XML, the Open Document Format (ODF) and what our response would be.
The result is I believe the right one: it enables anyone with existing
Microsoft Office documents to move them forwards into the open world of
XML without any loss of fidelity or content. This has been the main
constraint of ODF: it can result in large amounts of information being
lost, given that ODF is a relatively new and unproven format and
reflects the current state of play of Open Office rather than Microsoft
Office.
This is the culmination of a long journey. As a company, we championed
XML very early on and have natively supported its use in Microsoft
Office since the 2000 release. I also think that the differing
nomenclature between “Open Document Format” and “Open XML” is revealing:
ODF emphasises the importance of the “document” which I think is a
mistake. We have moved on from the idea of static ‘documents’ into a
world where the desktop and office tools are as much about interaction
and integration with backend systems as they are about writing notes and
memos. The importance of XML is that it can be used to move data
seamlessly between applications and systems while maintaining the
semantics of that data: something that ODF is currently unable to
support.
ODF lacks an essential element – support for custom defined XML schema.
I find it highly unlikely that any single XML schema is going to meet
all the varied needs of governments and businesses. So Open XML’s
support for extensible and custom defined schema is an important
differentiator too. The Open XML formats were also designed with
backwards compatibility in mind – something that ODF does not address,
but which is essential when talking about document management, archiving
requirements and various aspects related to the legal interpretation of
electronic documentation.
This decision to me is absolutely the right one: it meets the needs of
our customers and partners in a responsible and mature way. And it’s
also a sign of a listening and responsive Microsoft – something that I
know is increasingly highly valued.
