The battle for an open document standard

There's been a lot of talk about Microsoft's Office Open XML format and the competing Open Document Format (ODF) recently. Some favor ODF, some favor Open XML and some wonder if we can't all just get along. The race for the desktop standard continues to heat up, with Ecma International expected to certify Open XML as a standard later this week. What exactly is at stake for Microsoft and for the open-source community? ZDnet takes a close look at Microsoft's bid for XML format dominance and finds this most recent battle to be inextricably bound to Microsoft's Office business model. "ODF and Linux represent the first chinks in Microsoft's armor in a long time. And just like the way Microsoft is going to do everything it can to protect [its desktop software business], others are going to do all they can to exploit that weakness," said Andrew Updegrove, an attorney and standards blogger.

For more on the battle for your documents:
- see this ZDnet article