[odf-discuss] Mass may endorse OXML.

[marbux]

On 7/3/07, Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera at zmsl.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> This is old news, but I haven't seen any posts on-list (it's been quiet
> lately, I know). Massachusetts may endorse Microsoft's OOXML.
>
>
> http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070702101415578
>
> Any takes on this?
>
> Personally I think that two overlapping standards will be harmful to
> competition and I believe that OOXML is much more difficult to implement
> than ODF. I don't really have anything to say that everyone on this list
> doesn't know already.
>
> It's actualy easier for Massachusetts to implement MOOXML than ODF because
they are already overwhelmingly using MS Office and have a huge silo of
legacy documents in Microsoft formats. So it's a painless migration to
MOOXML, no need to rewrite business process scripts, etc. The pain comes
later from the vendor lock-in. With ODF, on the other hand, can't be
integrated with  Microsoft-bound business processes because of the
interoperability barrier and poor fidelity conversions. And ripping out and
replacing not only MS Office but all of the business process scripts would
be ruinously expensive.

As one of the IBM SOA experts said:

"Because most companies have a significant investment in their legacy
infrastructure, *management is typically not open to ripping out and
replacing legacy systems,* regardless of the level of shortcomings evident
in the infrastructure. Rewriting or significantly modifying large portions
of a legacy environment is neither practical nor realistically
accomplishable in a reasonable time frame." (Italics added.) <
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-soa-adaptleg/>.

Too bad the IBM office productivity software execs never got that memo. Rip
out and replace is the only option they've given the enterprise market for
ODF implementation, as with the ill-considered legislation that failed in
five states so far. :-)

My guess is that we are going to see a lot of the ODF adoption decisions
being revised to take the Massachusetts approach. As I've been saying, ODF
has won a lot of government adoption decisions but darned few
implementations. Governments have largely been awaiting the interoperability
tools needed to escape Microsoft's lock-in but the tools have not been
forthcoming. And won't be given current attitudes toward interoperability on
the ODF TC at OASIS.
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