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Our Blogs Open Sauce - A GNU perspective OOXML: one small step for Microsoft
Our Blogs Open Sauce - A GNU perspective OOXML: one small step for Microsoft | OOXML: one small step for Microsoft |
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| Written by Sam Varghese | |
| Friday, 06 July 2007 | |
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In September 2005, Massachusetts had caused some conternation in Redmond when its IT division advised the state to exclusively use XML formats for any official documents. This was decreed at a time when only OpenOffice.org and its variants were able to meet this standard. The Open Document Format, supported by OpenOffice.org and its variants, remains on the state's list of viable formats; OOXML is now also on that list. Microsoft probably regards it as the first step towards becoming the sole standard. And it may not be too far wrong. Standards are the way technology companies control markets and make money; once a standard set by company X becomes the dominant one in use, then all kinds of business tricks come into play in order to push rivals even further out of the market. And standards that don't gain sufficient market share tend to die out - a notable example is the Betamax format for the VCR. Despite being a far superior format than VHS, it lost the battle for market share and went the way of the dodo. So Microsoft was keen to ensure that its Office XML format got its foot in at the door. This, after all, is the time when big companies can push their cases a bit harder - the American presidential elections are slated for next November. Campaign contributions carry a great deal of weight. Pushing its standard will be a gradual process for Microsoft - something like boiling a frog. Donations of Office 2007 to schools won't hurt. Neither will copies of Office 2007 at rock-bottom prices to the local government. Some donations to the universities in Massachusetts will help oil the wheels even more. Once people get used to a certain way of doing things, it is hard to shake them out of it. We humans are, by and large, creatures of habit. And for the most part we don't like to be different; we like to fit in. Microsoft is aware of this only too well. There's an inherent danger in accepting "open" standards from a company that deals in proprietary software; it is easy, once there is sufficient acceptance of that "open" standard, to tweak things a bit so that the next version does not quite work with its predecessor. Then you can easily sell the next version of your product to overcome the difference. Before the customer knows it, they have become flunkeys. The US has seen this happen once too often in the past. But it never seems to learn. I do see a bright spot in this, though - in keeping its eyes on the US for the most part, Microsoft is in great danger of missing the main game, which is increasingly being played out in China, Brazil, India and a host of other nations. One day, the company will wake up and wonder when it missed the bus.
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