ODF Has Won, Says Microsoft

That is what we can conclude from Stuart McKee’s statement. It sure sounds nice! Unfortunately, it does hardly anything for the divide created because of ODF and OOXML. It has been a weird journey for OOXML, first it was rejected, then approved, then appealed against, and now it finds a parallel standard being implemented in its own product!

I believe ODF winning has no value if the document users cannot reap the benefits of interoperability. It is not about a war between ODF and OOXML, neither is it about war between companies. It might be so for the corporate giants. For us, the users, it is about which of these makes our life easier. Which of these will give us freedom of using the products of our choice, which of these will let us access the documents whenever we want, and which of these will free us from the clutches of vendor lock-ins. Today the answer is ODF, and I believe it would have helped if all this effort had gone into improving it instead of creating a competitor.

It is commendable that Microsoft has committed to embracing ODF. Unfortunately all the talk is still at the technical level, not about benefits for the users. Finally, it is not about ODF or OOXML winning, it is about the user’s win!