OpenXML, comments

I was studying both the 6.000 pages Open XML ISO specification and comments to the fast track procedures by several parties around world. It's clearly impossible to implement such standard as it is by a competitive vendor to Microsoft. Microsoft made a good effort to lock-up his standard and made it unavailable for implementation for anyone else.

The OOXML specification is protected by multiple patents, where as the patent holder Microsoft corporation does not guarantee not to sue or confer any other rights for competitors. The basic implementation of such standard by the competition can face patent infringement cases around the world. This means a real threat for competitive applications even before the development begins.

From the beginning, office suite applications by Microsoft were benefiting from their proprietary standards, where other parties were unable to implement such standard and make their products compatible. Microsoft decided to ignore the existing open standards, and as we have seen in the past, they are trying to bring upon a new “open” proprietary standard that can be fully integrated only by Microsoft itself. There have been Open Standards for document exchange out there for a longer time, Microsoft had pledged only one step for its implementation, but in the end it turns out to be a third party plug-in which was made by another developer (Sun Microsystems).

To date, the standard has not been implemented by its vendor or the competition. It is clear that the Microsoft product will switch to their “open” standard in a certain time; does this mean competition in the field of standards?