Microsoft bows to Mass. with open records format

A Microsoft Corp. executive said yesterday that his company's new office software will comply with a disputed Massachusetts government mandate requiring the use of ''open" data formats.

Executives from rival software makers greeted the pledge with skepticism.

But Massachusetts' chief information officer, Peter Quinn, who's leading the drive for the new data standard, said the Microsoft proposal will probably meet the state's demands.

The Massachusetts standard, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2007, has attracted worldwide attention because it poses a major challenge to Microsoft Office, by far the world's most popular office software program. Up to now, Microsoft Office has used data formats that are not fully compatible with office software from other companies. Quinn has called for an open standard for files generated by 50,000 computers used in the state's executive branch. Quinn said this policy would let state workers use different brands of software, and ensure that state documents would be readable for many years into the future.

Quinn plans to adopt the OpenDocument Format, a standard created by a number of major companies, including Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM Corp., and there have been questions about whether Microsoft products would be excluded from future state work. But in a forum held yesterday at the State House, Alan Yates, general manager of Microsoft's Information Worker business unit, said the 2007 version of Microsoft Office will have an open file format, called Open XML.

Microsoft recently said it will submit Open XML to a standards group in Switzerland, called Ecma International, to have it certified as a fully open standard. Once this is done, Yates said, any other software company will be free to make its products compatible with Open XML.

Yates called Open XML ''utterly, completely, and perpetually open," and said Microsoft would charge no royalties or licensing fees for its use. ''You won't ever be sued for using this technology," Yates said. ''You can use this technology with no concern."

Yates's assurances did not impress Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president for software standards. ''I think there are a lot more questions than answers here," Sutor said. He noted that while OpenDocument Format was created by a host of computer companies, Open XML was developed by Microsoft alone.

In addition, he noted that while OpenDocument Format is ready for use today, Open XML will not be certified for at least a year. ''The Ecma standard from Microsoft is a promise," Sutor said.

But Quinn said he didn't care that Microsoft was the sole developer of Open XML. As long as the company agrees to fully share the software with rivals, ''I don't see how you can get hung up about it," he said.

Douglas W. Johnson, program manager for standards strategy at Sun Microsystems, also conceded that Microsoft was moving in the right direction. ''There's no doubt about it," he said. ''They are more open than they were before."

But openness could reduce Microsoft's profits from the sale of Microsoft Office. The software has over 90 percent of the office-software market, despite being priced much higher than competing products.

Many software industry experts say the popularity of Office is driven by its unique file formats, which make it difficult and costly for users to switch to a different brand. If Microsoft moves to an open standard, people will be able to easily change brands. That could force Microsoft to slash the price of Office, driving down profits as it faces intense competition from booming rivals like Google Inc.

Yates, though, said that a move to open file standards won't hurt sales of Office. ''The product has been extremely successful because it's more usable," he said, not because customers have been locked into Microsoft's unique format.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.