"I am a big fan of the latest version of Microsoft Office, called Office 2007...

...ODF is also much simpler. It is functionally similar to OOXML, but comprises only 850 pages of code, compared to more than 6000 pages for OOXML.

It is not hard to believe, as many in the standards community do, that Microsoft's whole strategy is to further entrench its global dominance and freeze out competitors.

Microsoft could, after all, have adopted the ODF standard itself and not pursued OOXML. Ask yourself why it would develop a rival standard, then bully others into adopting it. We will know in a couple of weeks which way the ISO vote goes.

It's a shame, really. Microsoft Office 2007 is a fabulous piece of work, but few people are using it, partly because of the new file format. OOXML works well, but things would have been much better had Microsoft adopted ODF. Microsoft now seems to have been too clever by half, to its own detriment and that of consumers. Microsoft Office 2007: great software, shame about the file format."