OOXML is an ISO approved standard (press release). Microsoft has also released a public statement acknowledging the approval. All this after an initial rejection and admist a mesh of irregularities.
I have been critical of having two standards for the same purpose. But this approval will bring sound of money through Government contracts for Microsoft and the associated businesses. Some believe that bringing OOXML in the standards family will improve its co-evolution with ODF.
But I will be all ears to understand how this will help me, the end user. Will having two standards improve the interoperability? Will it improve the functionality? Will it assure document liberation? Will I be able to send my document with assurance that someone else can read it because it is composed using a standard? Will I still have the freedom to use office suite of my choice?
If not, then this approval is not of any benefit to me. Would it be then be worth having two standards and then spending another era in ensuring that they are interoperable? However, the best thing we can do now is to make OOXML accessible in non-Microsoft worlds. And hopefully this will be a lot easier than the previous versions since OOXML is a standard now.
April 6th, 2008 at 2:57 am
Well, OOXML is a standard, but I doubt that many governments will use it. Our government (Norway) is not so hasty and they are looking over the process of the ISO vote. As a Anders Brenna writes in his blog:
“But Norwegian OOXML-opponents still wants the Norwegian department of Ministry of Trade and Industry to look into the Norwegian process.”
From the article: http://blog.abrenna.com/norwegian-ooxml-vote-did-not-tip-ballot/
And business-wise, my company (the largest digital media publishing house in norway) for example, has a policy to refuse the use of/return any OOXML documents we recieve.
IF you are interested, you can read some of my articles on the OOXML subject: (sorry if I spam, I’ve been a reader of your blog for long time
)
http://phun-ky.net/2008/04/OOXML-problems-will-be-fixed
http://phun-ky.net/2008/04/norwayss-yes-to-ooxml-recieves-formal-protest
http://phun-ky.net/2008/03/norway-says-yes-to-ooxml-despite-protests
http://phun-ky.net/2007/08/the-ooxml-problem
http://phun-ky.net/2007/08/norway-says-no-to-ooxml
June 1st, 2008 at 10:44 am
[...] is now an official standard, which means it has been accepted by the standards organization. However, at least 3 of its members [...]