The fact that Microsoft has decided to offer the XML format as a standard in the next Office 12 suite is almost a revolution.
Aside from the fact that last time Microsoft decided to change the format of the files from Office we were 8 years younger, until now, the company has never allowed free access to its formats.
With Longhorn taking forever to be released, with an Office suite targeted by more and more alternatives (for example, Open
Office has reached a market share of 10-15%) Microsoft needs an innovation like a breath of fresh air to get back on top and to convince companies to switch to the new Office 12.
Microsoft deciding that Office 12 will run also on Windows XP, although initially it was announced only for Longhorn, might be a clue that the long-awaited operating system is not too well, and it might take longer than it had been anticipated until its release.
And the poor financial results published by Microsoft a month ago came only to confirm the poor performances of products like Office and Windows which only recorded increases of 2% compared to the 12% recorded by Xbox and SQL Server.
With XML's implementation into Office 12, Microsoft will also have a better interoperability, but it will take more than that to make the new suite a successful product.
If XML is also be supported by previous Office versions, the companies won't have many reasons that would justify the migration to the new product.
Therefore, Microsoft is forced to win two risky bets: Longhorn versus Mac OS X and Office 12 versus Open Office. Will it succeed?
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