Defend it? Of course, but what's next for Office Open XML?

It's not a surprise that Microsoft is still defending OOXML. It's not a surprise that Microsoft is still trying to put a cleaner spin on last year's scandalous ECMA vote. But the underlying story here is that Microsoft is ramping up another effort to push OOXML into the world (and defend against OpenOffice.org). In a blog post by Microsoft Office program manager Brian Jones today, Jones discussed Microsoft's decision last week to kick-off an effort to open documentation on the proprietary binary formats used in Office (.doc; .xls: .ppt).

These binaries have always been somewhat available, but Microsoft's move goes one step further, says Informationweek's Sedar Yegulalp:

"Microsoft has created and promoted its own nonbinary XML standard for documents [OOXML], when most of everyone else has been sticking with ODF. But any progress is better than no progress, I guess, and this project effectively does two things at once: it provides both code and documentation for the Office binary formats. It's been possible to get documentation for the binary formats by writing to Microsoft, but this goes a step further and will make the whole thing available as a simple download."

Ultimately, of course, the project is all about translating the binaries to Open Office XML and thereby giving OOXML an edge over ODF because of better support for native Office binaries. Given that Microsoft could have simply opted to cooperate with ODF to begin with, the whole thing seems like another smoke-and-mirrors move. Microsoft can use this latest effort to appear open and cooperative while actually being controlling and uncooperative.

On top of Microsoft's OOXML rumblings, this week OpenOffice.org thumbed its nose at a Burton Group report that asserts OOXML is better than ODF, reports CNet. So the battle forges on. In the meantime, Google Docs is all over the place. Have you used ODF/Google Docs/OpenOffice.org?

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