Microsoft redeploys OOXML in open standards battle

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Microsoft has been trying to persuade the British government to break
its promise to back a single document format, Computer Weekly has
learned.

If Microsoft's lobbying succeeds it will require the Cabinet Office to
erase yet another crucial element of its flagship ICT Strategy, giving
the software giant trump cards over the standard that set the terms of
competition for its competitors

Microsoft competitors began work on the original open document format
in 2001 in an effort to breach its office software monopoly. Simon
Phipps, who led the effort as the then head of open source at Sun
Microsystems, said they invited Microsoft to take part and held the
standard setting forum at the OASIS industry consortium. Microsoft
refused, he says.

By the time ISO had accredited the Open Document Format as an official
standard in 2006, policy makers were beginning to realise how
important open standards were in preventing monopolies like
Microsoft's forming in the first place

The compromise [to confirm OOXML as a "standard"] has already tainted
ISO's reputation as standards authority. There was already a document
standard when Microsoft asked ISO to approve its format. ISO justified
its decision by claiming the market had called for another document
standard. But the market that called for Microsoft's standard was
Microsoft itself, Microsoft's supply chain, and Microsoft's customers.

As ISO gave its approval controversially in February 2008, the
European Commission issued Microsoft with a record €899m fine for
abusing its dominant market position by restricting competitors
through the use of its ubiquitous software standards

By 2010, local authorities with close ties to the team that drafted
the government's open standards policy were complaining that
Microsoft's hold over document standards was preventing them using
competing software. The standards were incompatible, allowing
Microsoft to retain possession of the market, charge monopoly rents,
and keep innovative competitors at bay
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