Thanks for the insightful commentary
Joe. I see things a bit differently. Maybe my tin foil hat is
wearing a bit tight these days, but i see MSOffice XML (MOOXML and
the MOOXML binary InfoSet) as a very important aspect of how
Microsoft integrates and leverages their desktop office monopoly
power into server side and device systems.

It is the combination of MOOXML and
.NET that creates the integration mesh between desktop, server
systems, and devices. Imagine every application or service
participating in either a loosely coupled or carefully crafted
information processing chain, being fluent in MOOXML, and able to
process internal data structures and processing instructions unique
to .NET.

Enterprise systems and services from
ORACLE, IBM and SAP will not have this same integration fluency.

The design of ISO MOOXML is such that
it would be impossible for <b>non Microsoft server and device
systems</b> to match the quality and depth of integration with
the 500 million desktops running MSOffice bound business processes.

Given that MOOXML will probably succeed
at getting ISO/IEC approval, removing the last "legal"
barrier for this MOOXML Stack, were looking at a massive migration of
MSOffice bound workgroup - workflow business processes to a new
lockin point; The Exchange/SharePoint Hub.

With the real estate industry, this
migration to to E/S hosted applications only took six months to
completely replace years of desktop productivity shrinkware
dominance. The leap in productivity was spectacular.

The downside of this migration is that
the real estate industry is now tied into Microsoft at the critically
important business process level. A binding that will perhaps last
through the next fifteen years. Try to take this away from the
average Realtor though, and they will bite your hand off.

The productivity payoff of this
migration is so dramatic that on one Friday afternoon, going into a
weekend of showing homes and submitting offers - the stuff that will
make or break every Realtor - Microsoft issued a summary end of life
for all Win2K desktops. And pulled it off without a hitch.

What MS did was to issue a security
patch for all Exchange systems. The patched systems then required IE
7.0. There is no IE 7.0 for Win2K desktops - notebooks. End of
Life. And not one complaint. The entire real estate industry simply
ran out to purchase new XP MSOffice 2003 systems able to run IE 7.0.
The lesson i took away from this is that the productive value of
these E/S Hub applications is such that writing a check to continue
business was seen as a requirement equivalent to having a license to
practice or a car to drive around in. It's a basic business expense.
They were happy to write these checks.

I believe that the MOOXML Stack is
designed to lock out competitors at a level they've never thought
possible. And i think it will work given that there is no such thing
as an alternative ODF Stack.

In 2004, washed away by the DOJ anti
trust settlement, Scott McNeely announced the terms of Sun's
surrender to Microsoft. He pointed out that Sun had find a way to
work with Microsoft because the Sun's customers were demanding better
integration of server side systems with the Microsoft desktop.

Sun sales people had tried to convince
server side customers that they could achieve the needed level of
desktop integration by replacing MSOffice with the inexpensive
StarOffice or the freely available OpenOffice. When that didn't
work, the sales staff stopped trying to bundle StarOffice with their
server side systems because it was killing sales.

Now Microsoft has their own server side
systems coming down the pike in droves. These systems all offer
superior integration with MSOffice productivity environments. They
also provide an easy to walk path towards the incredible productivity
jump a business process takes by moving from desktop bound workgroups
to an XML based integration Hub.

Server side vendors like IBM, Oracle,
Zimbra, Alfresco, RedHat - JBoss, SalesForce.com and Google are never
going to get that same kind of integration to the MSOffice bound
desktop.

When the server side guys competed
against each other, currying favor with Redmond was the secret to
marketplace advantage. Now that Microsoft has competitive offerings,
those favors might not be available. If the purchase decision is
going to be based on integration with the MSOffice bound desktop,
we're looking at a whole new monopoly realm of desktop to server to
device systems.

There's one last hurdle for Redmond.
Get MOOXML through ISO/IEC.

~ge~

Of course this "incompatibility"outcome was planned years ago.  What else could we expect since Microsoft has steadfastedly refused to participate in the OASIS Open Office XML (ODF) effort, which began in 2002 with Microsoft joining the group, but noticeably choosing to observe without contribution or participation.

So it is Microsoft who is a fault for any finding of ODF - MSOffice incompatibility, not the OASIS ODF Technical Committee or ODF community of vendors, developers and users.

Our friends in Redmond planned and plotted for this dilemma.  Their intentions are to control completely the migration of information and information processes from legacy binary file formats to their own version of XML.

One thing many people miss about this is that Microsoft mus tmove to XML fiel formats no matter what.  The Internet has usshered in a new age of collaborative computing based on universal access, connectivity and exchange.  It's a world driven by HTML, XML and RDF/XML.  Microsoft either embraces this juggernaut, or gets left in the dust.

Interestingly, i for one believe that Microsoft has the best next generation Internet - XML stategey out there.  There's a lot of low level wiki - writely collaobration out there.  And of course Lotus Notes has reigned for years, alone and unchallenged in the client/server area of intelligent documents, forms, managed workflows, scripted routing, and collaborative computing.  Microsoft's extraordinary opportunity is to leverage their desktop MSOffic emonopoly of over 500 million users into the emerging arena of highly interoperable "Information Processing Chains".

Because of Redmond's iron fisted monopolist control over MSOffice desktop productivity environment's, they own entirely the Information Processing Chain opportunity.  And the Vista Chain (Stack) is a wonder to behold.

The core of the Vista Chain is the OOXML document/data transport connection between MSOffice and the Exchange/SharePoint/Groove Hub.  IE and Vista augment this chain in that they are OOXML fluent and OOXML enabling. 

The idea here is for Microsoft to migrate to the E/S XML HUB both the MSOffice bound binary documents and the volumes of critical day to day  MSOffice bound business processes, line of business integrated apps, and scores of assistive technology type add-ons.  Microsoft has to ge this job done before others swoop in and do it for them.  Others would be SaaS, SOA, and a host of Enterprise 2.0 collaborative computing initiatives.

The Vista Chain is based on the portable XML document/data transport, OOXML; and,the Vista .NET 3.0 framework.  Legacy Win 32 APi application and platform dependencies that bind those billions of binary documents to MSOffice, are replaced in OOXML by bindings to the Vista .NET 3.0 dependencies.  From the E/S Hub, it's easy for end users to create data and workflow bindings involving MS SQL Server transaction and data processing backends.  Same with MS Live, Office Communicator, Active Directory, MS ERP, MS CRM, and MS Money.

The Vista Chain is good stuff.  Moving those MSOffic ebound business processes to the E/S XML Hub is not all that difficult, and the reward is a guaranteed leap in porductivity.  A giant leap.

Which brings us back to the challenge ODF faces.  Will there be an ODF Chain?  Not if users and providers are unable to perfectly convert those MSOffice bound billions of billions fo binary documents and MSOffice bound business processes to ODF.

The challenge for ODF is in doing exactly what OOXML does.  The end users migration to XML and the XML Hubs is entirely dependent on three successive stages.  All of which OOXML can currently master:

1. Perfect Conversion Fidelity :: of billions of binary documents to XML (ODF - OOXXML)
2. Perfect Round Trip Fidelity :: MSOffic ebound business processes Workgroup - WorkFlow
   
3. Application Interoperability :: between all processing chain application participants, even as they
   span desktop, server, device and Enterprise 2.0 serivces and systems.