[FOSS-PDI] Office 2007 won't support ISO's OOXML

[Sunil Abraham]

Office 2007 won't support ISO's OOXML 
By David Worthington 

May 21, 2008 — For customers expecting an ISO-conformant Office Open XML
(OOXML) in Microsoft Office, the wait will continue: Microsoft will not
implement the standardized version of its own document format until
Office 14 ships. Meanwhile, a service pack due in 2009 is expected to
expand the formats supported by Office 2007.

Today, Microsoft announced that it was making new commitments to
document interoperability within its Office product line for Windows.
Office 2007 Service Pack 2 will add native support for OpenDocument
Format (ODF) 1.1, PDF 1.5, PDF/A and XML Paper Specification, an
XML-based fixed-document format created by Microsoft.

Microsoft did not say in the announcement whether the Macintosh editions
of Office would support any additional document formats. Office 2004 for
Mac still lacks a full implementation of the Ecma 376 version of OOXML
that Microsoft introduced with Office 2007.

In a surprise move, the company also announced that it intends to
participate in the OASIS ODF working group and the corresponding ISO/IEC
Joint Technical Committee 1 Subcommittee 34 working groups for ODF, as
well as the ISO Technical Committee 171 working group for PDF, said Doug
Mahugh, senior product manager for Microsoft Office.

He added that Microsoft would also introduce an API to allow developers
to plug their own converters for formats, such as ODF, into Office to
make it the default conversion path. ODF 1.1 was chosen over the
ISO-standard ODF 1.0 as a practical decision based upon interoperability
with existing implementations, Mahugh explained.

“It’s the de facto version,” said Jason Matusow, senior director of
interoperability at Microsoft. “We have to look at the development
investments companies are making.”

Members of Microsoft’s Interop Vendor Alliance, including Linspire,
Novell, Turbolinux and Xandros, are collaborating with Microsoft on
document interoperability, and Microsoft sponsors a SourceForge project
to the same end.

However, the company is not quick to embrace its own creation. Mahugh
stated that Microsoft would not implement the final ISO version of OOXML
until Office 14 ships at an unstated date in the future. This variant of
OOXML was designated ISO/IEC 29500 at the time it was certified as an
ISO International standard in April.

“One way to look at it is the prioritization of formats,” Mahugh
explained. “We reach a point in time where we have to decide whether to
continue to invest in a previous version [of Office] or to cut the cord
and move forward.”

ODF support was a priority for Microsoft, Mahugh noted, adding that
“real world” customers say that there is a pressing need for PDF
support. “At this point there are no products using [ISO/IEC 29500] in
the marketplace.”

Microsoft has yet to publicly discuss a timeline for Office 14, but one
analyst believes that it can’t come too soon.

“Customers that are expecting true document fidelity from XML-based,
ISO-standard document formats will continue to be disappointed,” said
Michael Silver, a Gartner Research vice president. Silver observed that
the most compatible formats to use today are Microsoft’s legacy
binaries, and he believes that Microsoft will be unlikely to convince
customers to move to OOXML in the foreseeable future.