Standards promotion body bolsters membership

The Open Document Format Alliance has added over 100 new member organisations in its first month.

The group currently boasts 138 members ranging from software vendors to local governments and archive services.

The ODF Alliance actively promotes the Open Document Format, an open standard approved by the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (Oasis) in May 2005.

ODF has been submitted by Oasis to the Joint Technical Committee of the International Electro-technical Commission for further approval as a de jure standard.

ODF is maintained and advanced by the Oasis Open Document Technical Committee, which was formed in November 2002.

The standard ensures that an ODF document can be opened and accessed in any application that supports the standard.

This should prevent what Sun Microsystems refers to as "Corporate Alzheimer's", where organisations are unable to access archived documents due to proprietary formats.

"In just a few weeks, there's been terrific momentum in support for the Open Document Format from across the globe," said Ken Wasch, president of the Software & Information Industry Association.

"All our supporters know that ODF represents a better way for all governments to preserve, access and better control their documents."

Microsoft has proved a fierce opponent of the standard, however, and plans to use the rival Open XML format in the next version of Office.

The format has been submitted for approval with the ECMA standards body. Approval of the standard would open up the Microsoft format without ceding control.

Critics assert that Microsoft opposes ODF because the Open XML format allows the company to lock in information, forcing users to purchase Microsoft Office products and preventing them from switching to competing offerings.