Microsoft's Open Document Format Support & Web Workers

If you use a number of different productivity applications, and especially if you cobmine Microsoft’s productivity applications with open source and freeware applications, Microsoft had big news today. The company has announced upcoming support in Microsoft Office 2007 for Open Document Format (ODF), which has been at the center of a number of long-standing feuds that Microsoft has been involved in.

We analyzed the news today over on the OStatic blog, dedicated to open source. You can find more there on why Microsoft says it is making this move, and there are skeptics too. Here’s how web workers may be affected.

Open Document Format (ODF) is a standardized document format that many applications, especially open source applications, use. Microsoft has been involved in a number of disputes over not supporting it. Most recently, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission. The complaint called out lack of support for ODF as impeding educational initiatives. Until now, Microsoft has aggressively pushed its Office Open XML (OOXML) format instead of ODF.

According to Microsoft in its announcement today: “We are committed to providing Office users with greater choice among document formats and enhanced interoperability between those formats and the applications that implement them,” said Chris Capossela, senior vice president for the Microsoft Business Division.

There are some skeptics, however. The Open Document Format Alliance issued a statement today saying: The ODF Alliance today greeted with skepticism Microsoft’s announcement of its intention to include support for the Open Document Format in the first half of 2009. “The proof will be whether and when Microsoft’s promised support for ODF is on par with its support for its own format. Governments will be looking for actual results, not promises in press releases,” said Marino Marcich, managing director of the ODF Alliance.

As a web worker, if you increasingly use Microsoft applications in conjunction with, say, open source and freeware applications, you absolutely want to root for full, flawless implementation of ODF in Microsoft Office. However, it remains to be seen whether it will be flawless. You also want to root for proper implementation if you don’t use Microsoft’s applications but frequently communicate with colleagues, partners and others who do. That’s because ODF is document Esperanto.

ODF support, in addition to PDF support and support for other formats will arrive in Microsoft Office in early 2009. We’ll see how the actual implementation works out. You can find more analysis in our story at OStatic.

What do you make of Microsoft’s decision?

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