July 9th, 2007

Microsoft’s 4th of July Trans-Atlantic assault on document standards

Posted by John Newton @ 5:58 am

Categories: Microsoft, ODF, OOXML, Standards

Tags: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Corp., OpenDocument Format, Standards, John Newton

On what is normally a slow period for news, Microsoft launched a concerted campaign to displace ODF and PDF as document access and retention standards on both sides of the Atlantic. Microsoft has proposed and lobbied for OOXML as an alternative to ODF and XPS as an alternative to Adobe’s PDF. Having been burned by Open Document Format (ODF) in the past, Microsoft is leading a new campaign to influence standards bodies, lobby governments, and educate the public on the desperate need for new standards rather than or in addition to existing ones. A successful document standard will affect the access, usage and control of office documents and records for decades to come. The latest battles could be seen during the 4th of July week in Massachusetts, Florida and the United Kingdom.
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