Security Bullet In
Communiques from the security front, sir
Tuesday 18 September 2007, 5:16 PM
Google welcomes ISO decision on OOXML
Search and advertising giant Google has welcomed the ISO decision to not approve the fast track of Office Open XML (OOXML) proposed standard DIS 29500 (ECMA 376) at this time.
A Google Code blog post states:
"Our engineers conducted an independent analysis of the OOXML specification and found several areas of concern, which we communicated both to the ISO and to the public. These include and are not limited to the following:
- for a specification of this size it was not given enough time for review;
- the undocumented features of OOXML prevents its implementation by other vendors;
- dependencies on other Microsoft proprietary formats and their technical defects makes it difficult to fully implement; and
- the overall cost for vendors of implementing multiple standards (hence the lack of OOXML implementations in the marketplace).
It is also incompatible with the existing ISO standard ISO 26300:2006, the Open Document Format (ODF), which already offers a high degree of interoperability, wide support, and offers the level playing field the world needs. Google is a supporter of ODF and has successfully integrated this open format into Google Docs and Spreadsheets. ODF also enjoys implementation in over twelve other products."
A Google Code blog post states:
"Our engineers conducted an independent analysis of the OOXML specification and found several areas of concern, which we communicated both to the ISO and to the public. These include and are not limited to the following:
- for a specification of this size it was not given enough time for review;
- the undocumented features of OOXML prevents its implementation by other vendors;
- dependencies on other Microsoft proprietary formats and their technical defects makes it difficult to fully implement; and
- the overall cost for vendors of implementing multiple standards (hence the lack of OOXML implementations in the marketplace).
It is also incompatible with the existing ISO standard ISO 26300:2006, the Open Document Format (ODF), which already offers a high degree of interoperability, wide support, and offers the level playing field the world needs. Google is a supporter of ODF and has successfully integrated this open format into Google Docs and Spreadsheets. ODF also enjoys implementation in over twelve other products."
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