The debate over Microsoft's document format Office Open XML (OOXML) is reaching a crescendo as the software giant intensifies lobbying for ratification of its format as an ISO standard.

A ballot among industry representatives will be taken in Geneva later this month on whether or not to approve the format, which follows a failed attempt by Microsoft in September last year.

Zhang Yaqin, Microsoft's chairman on the mainland, said at an industry forum late last month that Microsoft will support China's homemade UDF (unified office document format) and hopes that both the UOF and OOXML standards will be adopted as international standards.

"We are not enemies from the very beginning and we have cooperated with the Chinese research institutions to work out a converter for the two standards," Zhang says. "I think our OOXML standard could help UOF enter the global market."

OOXML is a file format that Microsoft released in December 2006 that became the company's standard with its Office 2007 suite.

The software giant has been campaigning since last year to get the new format approved as an ISO standard. But the company's efforts received bitter opposition in China last year and failed in a preliminary vote last September, when OOXML was vetoed by 18 counties including China.

"We welcome Microsoft's support for the UOF standard," says Ni Guangnan, an academic from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who wrote a public letter to the Chinese media opposing the OOXML format in July. "But we expect Microsoft to take more realistic actions."

Since the 1990s when Microsoft first became the dominant office software worldwide, the company's formats, such as .doc, .xls and .ppt have been used globally, becoming de facto industry standards.

Although the domination has helped Microsoft gain unprecedented success, the virtual monopoly has been criticized by many as raising formidable barriers to other software makers who must make enormous effort to break through Microsoft's proprietary formats and make compatible products.

Hu Caiyong, founder and CEO of Beijing Redflag CH2000 Software, an open-source software company that developed Red Office, says that Microsoft's monopoly in document formats has become the biggest obstacle to the development of Chinese software companies, as the success of their office products rely heavily on how well they simulate and are compatible with Microsoft's products.

"We have spent five years to make our products fairly compatible with Microsoft's previous file formats," says Hu. "If Microsoft's OOMXL standard is adopted by the ISO, we may have to spend another five years to adapt to the new standard. "

Unlike the current ISO open document format (ODF) and China's national standard UDF, Microsoft's OOXML can only run on a Windows platform and contains many proprietary technologies that can only be fully supported by its own products, according to experts.

Such a reliance on Microsoft's software is believed by many to be a move to expand its monopoly in operating systems, a similar practice with which it managed to beat browser innovator Netscape by bundling Internet Explorer for free in Windows systems.

"Although we admire Microsoft's achievements in the software industry, we oppose to its efforts to make OOXML an international standard because an ISO standard can't be built on the private technologies of a single company," Ni says.

Although Microsoft's OOMXL has received bitter opposition in China, its most difficult battles might be outside China.

Last month, the antitrust arm of the European Commission began formal probes against Microsoft in two cases that allege the multinational abused its dominant market position.

As part of the investigation, the commission said that it would scrutinize Microsoft's contentious file format OOXML on the grounds that the specification doesn't work with competitors' software.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the European Commission has asked Microsoft to provide information about its part in the ISO ratification process, investigating whether Microsoft put pressure on national committees that will vote on if the OOXML format should be adopted as an ISO standard.

Opponents of OOXML have alleged on many occasions that Microsoft has attempted to influence the voting process using questionable means, allegations that Microsoft has unequivocally denied.

Through it all, Microsoft seems confident that OOXML will be adopted as an international standard. Greg Thomas, a spokesman for Microsoft's office business, said last week that the company is optimistic in the lead-up to the ballot as a huge amount of work was done on the specification since September.

 

(China Daily 02/25/2008 page9)

2013-07-17