What if Microsoft surrenders the specifications of its legacy .doc, .xls, .ppt and other formats just in time to make a big impact on the voting process for OOXML at ISO (votes due in early Sept.)?
This would make a big PR splash but would actually produce little useful information because there are so many additional technical dependencies within OOXML -- not just upon the legacy formats.
Microsoft will need to wait until very close to the final vote submissions so there's no time for the world to evaluate what's in these legacy specs. You would expect there to be a lot missing and there are still conversion processes between these formats and transitional formats, like Microsoft's extended proprietary RTF, which would need to be revealed for such specifications to be useful in the context of saying the OOXML and some of its major dependencies are open.
If I was Microsoft and I felt the need to minimize the risk of failure at ISO this Sept., then I'd be thinking of a dramatic "give-up" such as the legacy format specifications that would give no advantage away.
I've been wondering this myself, what will be Microsoft's "October Surprise", or "August Surprise" in this case.
Your guess is as good as any I've heard.
Posted by: Rob Weir | June 29, 2007 at 12:21 AM