Without supporting the new ODF standard recently approved by ISO, Microsoft remains committed to its plan: making XML the default file format for Office 2007.
A Microsoft Corp. official stated that despite the recent approval of the ODF (Open Document Format for Office Applications) by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the company is steadfast in its decision not to support ODF in its Office software suite.
Instead of supporting ODF, Microsoft is focusing on making XML the default file format for Office 2007 (including documents from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), said Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s Vice President in charge of Office marketing.
Microsoft aims to have Office Open XML recognized as the international standard for Office documents and submitted its proposal to the European standards organization Ecma International in November 2005. The company hopes that approval from Ecma will expedite the ISO standardization process. However, in early May 2006, ISO approved ODF, the competitor to Open XML, as an international standard (ODF was submitted by the OpenDocument Foundation and supported by several of Microsoft’s competitors, including Sun Microsystems Inc., Adobe Systems Inc., and IBM Corp.). Analyst firm Gartner Inc. noted that this is “a blow to Microsoft” as ISO is unlikely to approve more than one XML-based standard for Office document formats.
Capossela believes that Microsoft customers are more concerned about backward compatibility between Office 2007 and older versions of Office than they are about ODF becoming a file format. Microsoft does not see the ISO’s approval of ODF as an obstacle to customers upgrading to Office 2007.
