Why Microsoft passed on OpenDocument XML format

daRk_heLmet

According to Brian, the format is open, comprehensive, and backward compatible - how could there be bad news? Well, as they say in Monty Python's The Holy Grail, "It's very nice-a, but we already got one." As Tim Bray notes, many of the other heavyweights (including Adobe - how did that not get picked up more widely?) in the technology industry have been collaborating on just such an XML based, open format referred to with the unexciting but descriptive moniker Open Document Format.

The question then becomes why did Microsoft invest its time and energy into creating a duplicate format? While conventional wisdom might have us believe that it's because big bad Redmond is all about lock-in, the open nature of the format undermines that argument.

When asked why Microsoft did not use the OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) OpenOffice.org XML file format, Paoli answered, "Sun standardized their own. We could have used a format from others and shoehorned in functionality, but our design needs to be different because we have 400 million legacy users. Moving 400 million users to XML is a complex problem."
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Read More: Tecosystems (weblog by stephen o'grady)
Source: ZDNet
More about the MS Office XML format: Brian Jones's Blog

nForcer

Well they do have a point about the legacy users...

bug77

BS. It's like saying: gee, we made something so ingenious, that all other engineers in the worls cannot put into a standard... (Remember when they tried to do the same with Java? Hm, Sun again. Maybe there is hope after all...)

Tipstaff

Microsofts response is bull. An open format would take away business from them.. at least that's the way 'they' see it. 400 million legacy users.. bah.. that's what converting is for. Not only can you still support your 400 mil legacy users in your own prodcuts, but you can push those users into a new standard, slowly, but surely into the open one. Such hypocrites. They already do this exact thing they are bitching about year after year with their own Office products.

Microsoft wants the market for themselves. No sharing. The tighter they can make a format that depends on a Microsoft product the better it is for them.That's the real reason they don't want an open standard. Period.

Greed. That's what it all comes down to. Simple greed.

-Tip