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back to article Microsoft accuses IBM of an 'ulterior' standards agenda

Microsoft is crying foul against IBM in its campaign for fast-track approval of XML Office file formats as an international standard. Microsoft has accused its former web services buddy of ulterior motives in orchestrating a global campaign using standards groups and governments to shoot down and stymie its Office Open XML …

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  1. Ian Damage

    Pot, meet Kettle.

    "This campaign to stop even the consideration of Open XML in ISO/IEC JTC1 is a blatant attempt to use the standards process to limit choice in the market place for ulterior commercial motives - without regard for the negative impact on consumer choice and technological innovation," Microsoft screamed.

    BWHAHAHAHA!

    After all the stifling of innovation, theft of IP, illegal business practices, and outright bullying of vendors, Microsoft (who's name came about when bill gates's first girlfriend saw him naked) should shut up before someone throw a half-brick back at that patricular glass house.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Receiving End

    So Microsoft is now on the receiving end of their very own tactics. Tactics they have used the last two decades to protect and further entrench their monopoly.. And they don't like it?

    Microsoft, tell someone who cares ... oops, there's no-one. Awe shame..

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  3. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

    Well that's a surprise - or maybe not !

    It is no surprise to see MS roll out the PR machine to try and spin MS as the good guys, and the rest of the world as evil. Quite frankly, by submitting their proposal for fast tracking , they are just taking the wee-wee. I've read it, well some of it at least, and think they should give it to some 6 year old kid to clean up a bit !

    Amongst what's wrong with it :

    We have an internationally agreed standard for country and language codes - so MS insist on using their own different one (bloat).

    We have an internationally agreed standard for representing dates & times - so MS insist on using their own different one (bloat). They even inist on redefining the calendar to incorporate their Excel bug over handling of leap years !

    See a pattern emerging here ?

    And whilst this is put forward as a standard to allow interoperation, some of it is carefully defined in terms of what their own proprietry and closed programs do - in other words, you need to know the internals of (for example) Word <something> in order to interpret the contents of some data structures. Thus it is not even legal in many countries to fully implement it !

    No, this 'standard' is nothing more than an attempt to get ISO support for more vendor lock-in, whilst ticking the "standards complaint" box for government and large corporate, and diverting attention from the real atempts at truly open documents.

    Claims like they make here are easily seen for what they are, corporate lies and bulls**t - just like they've been doing for years !

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ODF is ISO-approved, not only OASIS

    You missed an important point: ODF has not only been standardised by OASIS, but is also now approved as an ISO standard, so Microsoft is trying to catch up and convince ISO to standardise two formats which do the same thing.

    The Microsoft application breaks just about every rule in the book, as explained in detail on this wiki: http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections

    It would be funny if it were not so sad, that MS is accusing others of stifling competition, when ODF is already implemented by many independent vendors while MS-OOXML is implemented by precisely one. Perhaps this is not surprising, given that the 6000-page specification is not comprehensive enough to allow third parties to build applications compatible with the file format, and the licensing restrictions allow MS to stamp on anyone who tries.

    Microsoft tried to dismiss the record number of "contradictions" (apparently 16, including the UK) by ISO members objecting to the fast-track approval of MS-OOXML, by saying that they were only a small proportion of ISO member countries. In fact, the number which are eligible to vote on the matter is 30, so more than half objected.

    You might wish to ask ANSI, the US representative, why it did not submit a contradiction, given the material in the link cited above.

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