Business Daily (Nairobi)
Okuttah Mark
8 April 2008
Software developers are awaiting a government decision on two competing open source formats to make key decisions that may impact on cost and accessibility of their products in the domestic market, industry insiders said.
This battle for the software market pitches Microsoft, the world's largest software company against another American computer firm IBM. Microsoft is competing in the software market with its Office OpenXML (OOXML) while IBM has the Open Document Format (ODF).
The IBM software is an open standard developed by a technical committee representing multiple vendors and the free software community groups. It was submitted to the International Standards Organisation (ISO) in 2005 and adopted in 2006.
Last week, some 86 per cent of participating countries approved of the Microsoft product and proposed it to the ISO for consideration for use or adoption as an open source format.
Kenya Bureau of Standards abstained from the vote despite having voted for the format last year - leaving local software makers in the guessing game.
Mr Michael Githaiga, of Synergy - Pro, a local software developer, said uncertainty over the choice of software was likely to shackle growth of the software development industry.
"If the Government chooses to back one format over the other, software developers will follow suit signalling to the business community what to adopt."
South Africa is among a growing number of governments that have adopted the IBM format.
Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the South African minister for public service and administration reckons that adoption of open standards is critical to building compatible information systems that are accessible, fair and reinforce a democratic culture in the market place.
"In South Africa we have a guiding document called the Minimum Interoperability Standards for Information Systems in Government, which prescribes use of open standards for all areas of information technology, including use of the ODF for exchange of office documents" the minister said.
Approval of Microsoft's format is expected to increase competitive pressure in the open software market despite insistence by some players that the software giant should have adopted the existing standard rather than developing a new one.
Industry players said the coming on board of Microsoft's software is likely to diminish the benefits to consumers. "Proliferation of multiple standards in this space is likely to be confusing and costly," said Mr Githaiga.
Microsoft has argued that its decision to launch its open software product is hinged on the fact that the IBM format lacks features that are necessary to represent binary office formats with 100 per cent accuracy.
Microsoft further claimed that the specification is not complete enough to ensure compatibility between implementations. IBM upped the game through release of the latest version of lotus notes that comes with a text editor, a spreadsheet editor and a presentation graphics editor in support of the XML-based ODF standard.
The product supports other formats including the current version of Microsoft Office and previous versions of the office open.
"IBM spent a small fortune ensuring that notes has seamless support for the old Microsoft Office format. Then Microsoft made major changes that would require a major rewrite of notes," said Mr Githaiga.
Mr Adrain Wainwright, the central marketing and communication manager for Microsoft Africa, reckons that office open is set to be one of the most widely used and supported formats in the market.
"Office open is has been widely implemented across platforms, devices and applications, and will continue to grow rapidly within government departments," he said.
He described the office open ISO standard format as offering developers the "blue-print" for implementing the document format that has been adopted in products by Microsoft, Apple, Novell, IBM, Ubuntu and other technology vendors on platforms such as Windows, Linux, Mac OS, i-Phone, and PalmOS.
Office open provides for the protection of critical government documents and is 100 per cent upward compatible with previous Microsoft Office file formats.
Mr Wainwright said with standards like Microsoft's office open in place, technology vendors are likely to create applications that work seamlessly ensuring end users have access to information to the information.
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