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Want to know the real reason why IBM and Microsoft are going at it hammer and tong over document formats?  Here it is.  Lotus Notes is getting clobbered by the Exchange/SharePoint juggernaut. 

The article is old, but the point is well taken.  Today the Exchange/SharePoint juggernaut i sover 65% marketshare.  IBM is struggling to protect the Lotus Stack against an impossible foe.

The thing is, Microsoft E/S will ALWAYS have better integration with the MSOffice - Outlook desktop monopoly base (550 M and counting).  Most of this "integration" is due to the high fidelity exchange of documents in Microsoft's proprietary XML mode known as MS-OOXML.   Forget the charade that MS-OOXML is an open standard called Ecma 376.  MSOffice and infamous XML Compatibility Pack Plug-in do not implement Ecma 376.  The Pack implements MS-OOXML.

One key differnece between MS-OOXML and Ecma 376 us that MS-OOXML is infused with the Smart Tags components.  These are for metadata, data binding, data extraction, workflow, intelligent routing and on demand re purposing of docuemnt components.  In effect, MS-OOXML :: Smart Tags combines with proprietary .NET Libraries, XAML and soon enough Silverlight to replace the entire span of W3C Open Internet Technologies. 

Can you say "HTML"?

Okay, so why does this matter to IBM and the future of Lotus Notes?

The end game of the document format wars is that of a stack model that converges desktop, server, devices and web information systems.  The MS Stack uses MS-OOXML as the primary transport of accelerated content/data/multi media streams running across the MS Stack of desktop, server, device and web application systems.  It's the one point of extreme interoperability.

It's also a barrier that no non MS applicatio or service can penetrate or interoperate with except on terms Microsoft dictates. 

More bad information, accusations and smearing innuendo.  Wrong on the facts,  Emotionally spent on the conclussions.  But wow it's fun to see them with their panties in such a twist.

The truth is that ODF is a far more "OPEN" standard than MS-OOXML could ever hope to be.  Sam's Open Standards arguments for the past five years remain as relevant today as when he first started makign them so many years ago.

The thing is, the Open Standards requirements are quite different than the real world Implementation Requirements we tried to meet with ODF.

The implementation requirements must deal with the reality of a world dominated by MSOffice.  The Open Standards arguments relate to a world as we wish it to be, but is not.

It's been said by analyst advising real world CIO's that, "ODF is a fine open standards format for an alternative universe where MSOffice doesn't exist".

If you live in that alternative universe, then ODF is the way to go.  Just download OpenOffice 2.3, and away you go.  Implementation is that easy.

If however you live in this universe, and must deal with the impossibly difficult problem of converting existing MSOffice documents, applications and processes to ODF, then you're screwed. 

All the grand Open Standards arguments Sam has made over the years will not change the facts of real world implmentation difficulities.

The truth is that ODF was not designed to meet the real world implmentation requirements of compatibility with existing Microsoft documents (formats) and, interoperability with existing Microsoft Office applications.

And then there are the problmes of ODF Interoperability with ODF applications.  At the base of this problem is the fact that compliance in ODF is optional.  ODF applications are allowed to routinely destroy metadata information needed (and placed into the markup) by other applications.<b

Archives of all OASIS ODF TC disussions.  Does not include Metadata, Formula or Accessibility lists