Opening Up Office XML Schemas

Overnight, Microsoft made a rather surprising announcement. Please understand that my analysis is based on Microsoft’s press release and supporting documentation; the company hasn’t briefed me yet, and so this initial response should be taken with some caution.

Apparently, Microsoft is opening up its proprietary Extensible Markup Language (XML) schemas. The company said that it would publish the Office XML Reference Schemas, which would be available on a royalty-free basis. Assuming this means Microsoft is publishing the schemas used to save Office documents and the royalty-free basis applies to anyone without condition, the change’s significance cannot be understated. Based on the information currently available, this would appear to be the case. So far, Microsoft only has published the WordprocessingXML schema used by Word 2003. More information is available here. Microsoft also plans to publish schemas for Excel and InfoPath.

Ahead of Office 2003’s launch, Microsoft heavily touted the openness of the productivity suite, which offers broad XML support. This support meant companies would be able to include or even front end back-end Web services with Office 2003. But, there was a catch. Microsoft only supported user-defined schemas in the high-end versions of Office available through volume licensing or retail. That meant only two of the six Office 2003 versions supported XML in a truly open fashion. The others used unpublished, schemas controlled by Microsoft.

Assuming I correctly understand Microsoft’s announcement, those schemas will not only be published but be available to anyone for free use. For businesses, this could mean eventual freedom from proprietary Office file formats. Enterprise data could truly become extensible, with Office being an important component in the solution. For competitors, the XML change could allow better data exchange between Office documents and other productivity suites.

In its press release, Microsoft mentioned fulfilling governments’ needs for more interoperability of data; Microsoft credited input from the Danish government as one reason for the schema publication. This statement and Microsoft’s announcement being made in Europe reveal something important about the company’s motivations. Europe is a hotbed of open-source experimentation and adoption, such as the city of Munich giving Microsoft Office the boot. Last week, Microsoft faced off against competitors, as part of a hearing that could close the European Union’s more-than-four-year antitrust investigation of the software giant. As European governments are leaders advocating open-source software over Microsoft’s, the company has good reason to address a couple of their major concerns: Openness and interoperability.

Microsoft certainly has something to offer. Office 2003’s XML support, aside from the proprietary schemas, is top notch. Any customer looking for a productivity suite that broadly supports XML doesn’t need look much further than Office 2003. Assuming there is no hidden gotcha in Microsoft’s opening up its reference schemas, Office 2003 would make a valuable resource for companies or governments deploying Web services.

The change also suggests a shift in the winds--that maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is serious about interoperability. Fully opening up and licensing the Office 2003 schemas creates the first crack in the productivity suite’s proprietary file formats. If data is truly is portable, as XML promises, then companies would no longer need to buy Office for compatibility of the file formats.

Microsoft doesn’t have much too much to lose by letting up on the file formats. Many businesses recognize the advantages of XML as a standard data format, and one that can be used for more than just productivity suite documents. Rather, the company has more to gain by making Office an appealing, useful XML data creation tool. Interoperability is essential to this end, and puts Microsoft in the stronger position of selling Office on its features. The move also is consistent with Office’s repositioning as a smart client to businesses’ back-end data.

The move also is consistent with Microsoft’s repositioning of Office System, which includes Office 2003, as a development platform like Windows. Another thing: The licensing mechanism means that Microsoft might not be looking to profit from its proprietary schemas or use them as a wedge against competitors on other platforms. Last week I bought Motorola’s MPx200 smartphone, which runs Microsoft’s Windows software for cell phones. Conceivably, Microsoft could have charged other cell phone or portable device makers a licensing fee for using Office schemas, which could have given the company an advantage leveraging compatibility with portable devices and Office.

Overall, the schema licensing is a promising change for Microsoft customers using Office 2003. What I don’t understand: Is why Microsoft didn’t just take the more open, interoperable approach in the first place.

Posted by Joe Wilcox at November 17, 2003 07:56 AM