Microsoft's Open XML Format Hits Standardization Speed Bump

Microsoft's Office Open XML format, which were introduced in Office 2007 and already certified by European standards body Ecma International, hit a speed bump Friday on its "Fast Track" process to become a worldwide ISO standard.

A technical committee called V1 established by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to submit a recommendation on the format to the INCITS Executive Board, which decides the official United States position on proposed standards, failed to reach a consensus before its July 17 deadline.

According to reports from both sides of the aisle, 15 members voted to approve Open XML "with comments", while 11 voted to "abstain with comments" and 10 voted to "disapprove with comments." Those who voted to disapprove also voted to abstain once the disapproval vote failed.

However, because the 15 V1 members voting for approval with comments only reflected 60 percent of the total committee, a 2/3rd majority was not reached and no official position could be decided. Microsoft was one vote short of having V1 send a recommendation to approve Open XML to INCITS prior to the ISO vote scheduled for September 2.

According to Rob Weir, an IBM employee who supports OpenDocument (ODF) -- a rival format that is already an ISO standard -- and vocally opposes Microsoft's Open XML, "The result is that V1 will report out a large list of technical comments for consideration by INCITS, but will not report a consensus position on this controversial ISO 'Fast Track' submission."

Weir noted that V1 began with only 7 members, and only 1 -- Microsoft -- supported approving Open XML. By the July 13 vote, 16 new members had joined V1 and 14 of them joined Microsoft's position on the format. "This is not surprising since the new members were largely Microsoft business partners," he said.

Microsoft shot back Tuesday with its own take on the matter, saying initial reports on the vote "show a skewed perspective about what really happened in Friday’s meeting, and what this means to the overall process."

According to Microsoft's Doug Mahugh, "The main focus of V1's work has been to review technical, editorial, and general comments about DIS 29500, the spec for Open XML. We've talked through 96 comments in detail during our meetings, and all but a handful of those have been processed since the beginning of June."

"As of May, only two of the V1 members (Microsoft and Mindjet) had any experience implementing Open XML, but now there are many companies with hands-on Open XML experience involved in the process," Mahugh added.

IBM, which publicly backs OpenDocument and voted "no" on Open XML becoming an Ecma standard, submitted the far majority of the comments - 234 in total. The rest of the V1 committee submitted 66 in total, while 207 comments were submitted to the INCITS Web site. 171 of those 207 comments were letters of general support, 31 were in opposition.

Weir and IBM support the position that the world does not need a second ISO-certified office format, and say Microsoft should simply adopt and contribute to OpenDocument. While Microsoft has said it will support ODF, and has helped build translators between the format and Open XML, it has long claimed it needed its own format due to backward compatibility issues.

ISO certification is important to Microsoft, because it holds more sway than Ecma standardization, especially in the United States. And with businesses and governments embracing a push toward open office formats, the acceptance of Open XML and Office 2007 hinge on its perception as an open standard.

Ironically, Microsoft is using the same argument that was once used against it regarding its support of alternative and open source office formats and suites: choice.

"We and a growing list of IT users and technology companies believe in choice among document formats. In addition to receiving rapid uptake among users and across the IT industry, a clear majority of the participants in the V1 process voted to recommend ISO ratification of Ecma Open XML, recognizing that this is the path to take to enable choice," remarked Tom Robertson, General Manager of Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft.

Without an official position from V1, the INCITS Executive Board must now come to its own conclusion - one that Microsoft hopes will follow the majority of V1 committee members.

"It is typical practice for INCITS to follow the recommendations of its technical committees. But since the committee of technical experts in V1 was not able to develop a consensus recommendation, it is not clear how the INCITS Executive Board will now make their decision," concluded IBM's Weir.