IBM Exec Says Microsoft Standards Plan Has 'Bizarre Restrictions'IBM Exec Says Microsoft Standards Plan Has 'Bizarre Restrictions'

Microsoft's move to sidestep the OASIS OpenDocument format (ODF) standard by making its own standards submission to the European ECMA standards body appears to contain 'bizarre restrictions' and are designed to give Microsoft 'complete control by tying products' together, IBM's standards chief said in an interview Friday.

Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of standards and open source, said he expects ECMA to issue "a blessing" of Microsoft's submission. "I don't expect it to be a standards process," he said.

However, Sutor said he holds out hope that the two competing standards sides--OASIS and ECMA--could one day "converge" their approaches, if two standards are developed.

The formats issue over office software has been galvanized in recent months around a struggle in the Massachusetts state government. As things stand now, the state's Informational Technology division has stipulated that OASIS' ODF be the state's standard, beginning in 2007. Microsoft has challenged that position and has gathered important political and legislative support that is attempting to amend the IT ruling in Microsoft's favor. The pro-Microsoft officials have cited Microsoft's submission to ECMA as a way to challenge the ODF standard.

Sharp lines in the sand over the issue have been drawn, with IBM and Sun Microsystems favoring the OASIS standard while Microsoft has picked up its most influential support for its ECMA position from Apple Computer and Intel. Two co-chairs at the ECMA unit are Microsoft representatives. IBM has representatives at the European organization, but will not participate in the review of Microsoft's 1900-page-plus submission.

While the office software standards controversy has wallowed in arcane format details, the matter involves several billion dollars of annual profits. Microsoft is said to collect billions of dollars in annual profits alone from its popular office software.

In explaining its reason for going to the ECMA, Microsoft stated: "Microsoft chose to make available the document formats for Office '12' to insure that the foundation for the OpenXML document formats is considered to be complete. The standardization process requires months of input and documentation, so Microsoft chose to look forward to align or document formats standardization with the latest shipping product functionality."

Microsoft's Office 12 is its planned major upgrade to its suite of Office applications including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

IBM, too, has a major new office software productivity product in the works, its Workplace Management Client. The IBM product, which Sutor said he currently uses in Beta form, is due to be released next year. He noted that Workplace Management Client adheres to the ODF standard, which was hammered out over several months by the OASIS standards body. Just as IBM isn't endorsing Microsoft's ECMA effort, Microsoft, although a member of OASIS, isn't supporting the OASIS endeavor.

Microsoft has criticized the OASIS approach. In a statement, the software giant said: "The OpenDocument format would not meet requirements for backward compatibility, for forward compatibility, or for performance, that millions of Microsoft customers tell us that they require."

Microsoft also complained that Sun tailored the OASIS effort to favor its OpenOffice 2.0 release, open source software that competes with Microsoft's offerings.

"The problem with the ECMA submission (by Microsoft) is that it's not a collaborative thing," said Sutor. "Microsoft is planning something that is non-negotiable. And, this ECMA business is coming much too late."