IT standards hijack.

A chorus of concern is growing among the European business community over the fast tracking of the approval process of a new IT standard, which will limit office software competition and saddle the European economy with increased future IT costs. Two organisations, OpenForum Europe (OFE), a leading organisation set up to advance the use of open standards, and ODF Alliance, a campaigning group promoting open document format, representing over 210 organisations in 30 countries, highlight that the new standard, Microsoft licensed Office Open XML, is being fast tracked to become a new European ISO/IEC standard. This new standard has been submitted by ECMA, the European Computer Manufacturers Association with a completely unrealistic deadline for stakeholders to engage. There are major difficulties with ECMA's standard, which if accepted will affect future formats of all documents on which all office and word processing software depends, and ultimately convenience and cost. It will reinforce the current supplier monopoly position, limit customer choice and increase costs for European business and consumers, commented OpenForum Europe.

One of the OFE's and ODF Alliance's main criticisms targeted at ECMA's standard is its complexity. It is over 6,000 pages long, excluding supporting material, making it time consuming and ultimately more expensive for the future development of software. It also duplicates an existing comprehensive and recently ratified) standard Open Document Format (ODF) which causes a major issue of system complexity, development, maintenance, archiving and licensing. Furthermore, elements of ECMA's standard contradict the recently ratified ODF standard, which if implemented, would lead to confusion for software developers, increase cost and leading to problems sharing and archiving documents. There are also serious doubts that the standard could be implemented outside the Microsoft environment, due to license requirements that are not made explicit. The issue of customer choice in the office software market has recently been highlighted by BECTA (the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency), which has produced two interim educational market reports, expressing concerns on value for money, interoperability, and lock-in from Microsoft Vista and Office 2007. The review includes eight recommendations for Microsoft to deal with issues for the academic community including potential lock-in, confusing pricing, and restrictive licensing terms.

www.openforumeurope.com