Global standard eludes MS

Software giant Microsoft's efforts to push Office Open XML (OOXML) through the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) have suffered a setback as it has failed to garner enough votes to gain approval as an international standard.

Governments worldwide, including India, prefer standards that are ratified from bodies such as the ISO. They are wary of holding digital data in proprietary formats, which could make them hostage to their software vendor. Hence, many have mandated the use of document formats that comply with open international standards. Many are considering open source products, such as OpenOffice, which not only store files locally using Open Document Format (ODF), but are also free. States such as Delhi, Kerala and others from the North-East are heavy adopters of ODF. In fact, an IIM-Ahmedabad report that studied the Delhi government's adoption of ODF and OpenOffice concluded that the government would save 78 per cent of its IT budget by using ODF.

The 5-month ballot process "" involving national standards bodies (including the Bureau of Indian Standards or BIS) from 104 countries "" dealt with the issue of whether OOXML should receive ISO certification and be accepted as an alternative standard to the open document format (ODF). ISO procedures demand that a specification must receive a 'Yes' vote from at least two-thirds (66.66%) votes and 'No' from less than 25 per cent to gain approval. Microsoft received 'Yes' votes from 53 per cent and 'No' from 26 per cent of the total votes, according to the ISO.

Comments (which were mandatory) that accompanied the votes will be discussed at a ballot resolution meeting in February 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland. If the proposed modifications (arising from the comments) are satisfactorily answered by Microsoft, the decision could be reversed. However, given the thousands of crores earmarked for e-governance in India, Microsoft could stand to lose substantial government business if the final decision does not go in its favour.

However, if the decision is reversed in February, the world will have to contend with two major international standards "" ODF and OOXML "" and "multiple standards are always bad" say ODF supporters. Multiple standards create a problem. Application developers too will face a major problem with two standards. They have to study the OOXML document, which is 6,000 pages long. Besides, argue ODF alliance members, "public data should be in a public format."

Opinion is divided on the issue. While firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), HCL and Sify support Microsoft, the Open Document Format (ODF) Alliance is backed by IT giants, including Sun Microsystems, IBM, Google, Novell, Red Hat and the Free Software Foundation. "This (referring to the results) is a great day for open standards. Open standards for data interchange are extremely important to humanity because it helps us to share knowledge freely with each other," said Venkatesh Hariharan, co-founder, Open Source Foundation of India.

Microsoft does not agree. "OOXML, a recognised standard by ECMA International already "" is a response to evolving technology formats in line with continual evolving technology systems," maintains Vijay Kapur, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India. He reasons that multiple standards enable users to have choice among formats, while facilitating greater flexibility and interoperability among diverse technology solutions that exist today. "Documents are becoming intelligent "" they can connect to databases, for instance. Moreover, they need to be used for different purposes. Can one single standard meet these changing expectations?" he asks. Besides, he asks: "When ODF was introduced as a standard, why were arguments of multiple standards (before ODF, we had standards such as ODA and docbook) not raised?"

IBM does not concur with this view. "What's the need to ignore international standards and create a new one? The international verdict is quite clear. We invite Microsoft to participate, strengthen and evolve an already established and accepted international standard "" the ODF," says Ashish Gautam, country leader (Open Standards), IBM India. Microsoft has time till February to answer the questions.