There can be no doubt that OOXML, as a standard, has severe flaws. It is incomplete, platform specific, application specific, full of contradictions, fails to adhere to existing standards, untestable, and presents a moving target for any IT worker. There is not an organization in existence, including Microsoft, that promises to actually implement the full standard. Much of this is due to the fact the final version doesn't actually exist on paper yet, but a large fraction is also do to the patchwork nature of the product.
The reason governments and companies wanted a 'office apps' standard in the first place was to release an avalanche of data from aging applications. OOXML shows every appearance of being created to prevent this escape, not enable it. The immaturity of the standard means that it remains a gamble to see if older documents will remain readable or not. The lack of testing means there is no way to determine what docs actually adhere to it or not. The ignoring of existing standards guarantees compatibility problems. All of these factors are handy for the owner of the biggest share of existing documents, as it forces users to continue to use only _their_ application or risk danger from every other quarter.
The thing is, ODF was not designed for the conversion of MSOffice documents, of which there are billions. Nor was ODF designed to be implemented by MSOffice. ODF was designed exactly for OpenOffice, which has a differnet model for impementing basic docuemnt structures than MSOffice.
So a couple of points regardign this highlight:
The first is that IBM's Lotus Symphony is NOT Open Source. IBM ripped off the OpenOffice 1.1.4 code base back when it was dual licensed under both SSSL and LGPL. IBM then closed the source code adding a wealth of proprietary eXtensions (think XForms and Lotus Notes connections). Then IBM released the proprietary Symphony as a free alternative to the original Open Source Community "OpenOffice.org".
If Microsoft had similarly ripped off an open source community, there would be hell to pay.
Another point here is the mistaken assumption that users can easily switch from MSOffice to an on-line product like Google Docs or ZOHO "without having to rip our and replace their entire desktop infrastructure."
This is a ridiculous assumption defied by the facts on the ground. Massqchusetts spent two years trying to migrate to ODF and couldn't do it. Every other pilot study known has experienced the same difficulties!
The thing about Web 2.0 alternatives is that these services can not be integrated into existing business processes and MSOffice workgroup bound activities. The collaborative advantages of Web 2.0 alternatives are disruptive and outside existing workflows, greatly marginalizing their usefulness. IF, and that's a big IF, MSOffice plug-ins were successful in the high fidelity round trip conversion of wor