Office Open XML Standardised; Does It Matter Anymore?
Many might wish that this was a bad April Fools joke, but Microsoft has at last managed to push OOXML through as an ISO standard. The New York Times reports that an overwhelming majority of voters supported the notion with only 10 countries' standards bodies voting against (Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Ecuador, India, Iran, New Zealand, South Africa, and Venezuela).
The main problem with OOXML is that it is a hugely complicated specification (the document is nearly 10 times bigger than ODF and there are doubts as to whether it is complete); aside from the fact that it is riddled with bugs, legacy workarounds and potential patent traps for competitors, not even Microsoft currently ships a working implementation of the standard. So it is hard to imagine anyone writing new OOXML-compatible software just for the fun of it.
As Joel Spolsky explains, the reason why Microsoft's binary Office formats are so complicated to start with is that they are just binary serialized forms of Microsoft's proprietary OLE object model. The OOXML standard describes how to store the same structures but this time serialized in XML instead. Sometimes a fresh start is the best course of action.
The benefit of open interfaces in computer systems is much the same the same as in real life. Take the common electrical plug for instance - it allows for a multitude of devices to be plugged into a multitude of sockets to draw power. You can be fairly certain that any one device will operate correctly plugged into any one of the vast numbers of sockets out there. And this is where the plug analogy becomes relevant - your valuable data becomes locked in, and only available via Microsoft's proprietary and commercial sockets.
From a developer's point of view, I think the standard is largely irrelevant. There are few incentives to support the format besides the creation of conversion tools. Simplicity has always been key in ICT and there is no reason to select OOXML in places where previously a custom format might have been used.
The danger of having OOXML accepted as an ISO standard is that Microsoft can and will use it as an argument in favor of selling Office into governments and companies concerned about the portability of their data. Of course in practice, with Microsoft being the only supplier of OOXML tools, the data is no better off than it was stored in their undocumented binary formats. Undoubtedly, Microsoft will also try to use its new-found standards compliance as a defense against monopoly accusations.