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In the comments to my last post, Charles asked why a proprietary XML format was better than a proprietary binary format. Well, my point wasn't that it is; my point was that OpenDocument isn't useless, which Dave Winer claimed it is.

But: I prefer the XML based Office 12 formats to the old DOC/XLS/PPT formats. Even if they are still proprietary. Here is why:

• Microsoft specifies the new formats and puts the specification under a royalty free license (whatever that means). I think this is a huge improvement over the old formats, which weren't specified at all. There has to be a reason it took the OpenOffice.org developers years in order to implement decent import/export filters for DOC. (BTW, isn't it ironic that the XML Formats Guide is only available as DOC file?)
• The new format is processable by everyone. ZIP tools and XML parsers are available for almost every programming language on almost any operating system. For the first time, everybody can work with Office documents without having to depend on third-party tools.
• Considering the points above, it will be much easier to integrate with Office. At my company, we develop a Java-based business application. Export to Office applications is a much requested feature. We can only go so far with the current CSV based export to Microsoft Excel.

That said, I still prefer OpenDocument, but I also have to consider the market realities.