Do you love Microsoft?

The most interesting thing for me was the insight I got into where MS is going on OpenXML. Now this is not something they addressed directly, or rather the insights did not come from their direct statements. So my insights were simply what one tired old cynic concluded from a variety of chats in the margins of the meeting and from listening closely to what the three MS representatives said.

There were three: Stijn Hendrikse, apparently a fairly senior manager based in Redmond (he mentioned for example that Brian Jones worked for him), Jerry Fishenden, a kind of advocate for OpenXML based in the UK, and Stephen McGibbon, another rather more technically knowledgeable advocate.

Both Jerry and Stephen came across as the nicest people you could possibly want to meet. The kind of people you hoped might become your friends. Not too smooth and charming, at least in Stephen’s case - you would not have expected him to be working in sales. But thoroughly trustworthy, both of them. They clearly believed that the leopard had changed its spots. MS was now genuinely committed to open standards. It had seen the error of its ways.

Would the maintenance of the standard be carried out by Ecma (assuming OpenXML became an ISO/IEC standard) or would it be carried out by JTC1? No question, JTC1. But would the detail be delegated to Ecma? No, it would all be beyond MS’ control in JTC1. Well at this point there was apparently some sotto voce discussion between Stephen and Stijn, followed by a little backtracking, but it came across loud and clear in subsequent discussions in the margins that Stephen and Jerry believed this was for real. MS was handing over control of OpenXML to JTC1 (or trying to).

I must admit I was impressed. Then, unasked the monkey dancer came to mind. Did he really endorse this, I wondered? After all, if you look at the last 10K, MS makes about $8 billion operating profit on Office, the large majority of which is monopoly profit, which would disappear if real competitors emerged. Did the other Stephen, sorry Steve, really endorse saying goodbye to $7 billion a year? It was hard to believe somehow.

So I sought enlightenment from Stijn. He was quite different. Much, much cuter. Maybe that is a jargon word. My background is in investment banking and I have several friends in real estate (all in the UK). “Cute” is a slightly barbed form of praise, but it certainly means that the guy is extremely smart, and is unlikely to reveal information carelessly.