(By Info-Tech Analyst Tim Hickernell - Printed with permission from Processor Magazine www.processor.com).
In case you missed it, Microsoft’s OOXML (Office Open XML) document format has received approval from the required number of member countries to become an ISO standard. If you did miss it, you are not alone. And did I mention PDF was recently approved as ISO 32000? The idea that there should be a single document format has failed, whether it is ODF (Open Document Format) or some other format. So, we are all now protected from the dark lords at Microsoft and Adobe, who apparently have been conspiring to bring ruin to us by giving us choices among document formats.
It’s About Content Life Cycle, Not Format
Since the original word processor wars and desktop productivity “suite wars” of the 1990s, there have been forces advocating a single “document format” for all purposes. We are asked to take a leap of faith and believe what a perfect world it would then be. This is due to the magical force called “interoperability,” which apparently only a single document format can deliver—according to some.
