A Deluge of Facts KOs OOXML (Office Open XML)
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Microsoft’s position is hardening as the ISO vote on OOXML (DIS 29500) in Geneva approaches at the end of this month. We know more clearly now how Microsoft and its proxy group, ECMA, will position Microsoft’s OOXML specification in advance of the vote. In short, Microsoft is betting that its influence with National Bodies will allow it to push through a specification which elevates its own interests over that of truly competitive, open international standards. In the end, it will be Microsoft’s own inflexibility that will be its undoing, and that undoing means knocking the OOXML out of approval for ISO status.
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ECMA, a RIAA-like industry group dedicated to advancing its members’ interests, published its responses to comments of the ISO National Bodies in response to Microsoft’s Office Open XML application for ISO standardization. The ECMA proposals will be discussed at a Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) in Geneva after which the National Bodies may reconsider their original vote.
ECMA makes an apparently false statement several times throughout its response: “Although no reference implementation or interoperability test suite is available at this time, a growing number of implementations of ECMA-376 are becoming available.”
That statement is not true. What ECMA does not say is that no one has implemented ECMA-376 OOXML in full or even close to it. In fact most ECMA referenced implementations are just using filters, converters or a file viewer. And as we know, Office 2007 is writing its own custom XML. Office 2007 lacks a “Save As OOXML (ECMA 376)” write that would make it possible to conform, verify and validate applications relying on the specifications.
So there is still no present implementation of what may or may not become an international and/or U.S. national standard.
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