Microsoft and OOXML

According to this Slashdot article, Microsoft Office 2007 fails badly to meet the official OOXML specification. So, after bullying their way into making OOXML the ISO standard, Microsoft's real strategy is now surfacing.

Microsoft's nefarious, strong-arm tactics in getting OOXML passed through ISO showed the company was very determined to defeat the competing ODF format. Why would Microsoft care so much about an ISO standard? They're already the de facto standard. Well, it turns out that Microsoft Office 2007, which purports to be using the OOXML file format, completely fails to conform to the official ISO specification. ZDNet ran Office 2007 through a series of tests and found 122,000 instances where it failed to conform to the standard.

So now we're about to enter an era where there is an official standard called OOXML, while the de facto standard remains Microsoft's proprietary format. Only this time, they've dressed up their proprietary format with the aura of being a public standard. Microsoft is betting that nobody will notice the difference. (or at least that nobody important notices)

It sure would be nice if our government would step in an actually regulate the Microsoft monopoly. The abuse of monopolistic advantages has become their central business strategy.