For his part Jason Matusow, the director of corporate standards for Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., encourages this sort of activity, telling eWEEK that there are no barriers for third parties to create bridges between ODF and its Open XML formats.
To me this sounds a bit strange as his company aims for all unnecessary barriers between ODF and Open XML that make conversion a hell. We do not expect Microsoft to come up with a reasonable proposal for the Ballot Resolution Meeting that would at least remove some of the incompatibilities.
You should take the context of his quote into consideration. Of course Microsoft cannot stand the French proposal and Matusow knows that. What they think about is the "Open Document Foundation" (that vanished into thin air after it became obvious cui bono) proposal to focus on a new file format instead of Open Document that was never intended for Office documents. Of course Matusow is happy with any move that weakens the Open Document Format. But the "split" was engineered slightly amateurish. Jason Matusow will continue to encourage this sort of activity. But markets and governments understand that Open Document is the appropriate standard to replace the old Microsoft binary formats for office communication. Open XML is just a premature compromise for those who believe in "high-fidelity" and that buying an ISO stamp for OOXML would make the format better.
Does the fact that he "encourages this sort of activity" mean financing of the "split" attempt? Or is it just the decent, the non-corrupt way: You retire as an ECMA bureaucrat who invited MS Open XML and work as a CompTIA lobbyist. You retire as an European Parliament president and become a lobbyists for Matusow's company. Works on other levels as well, it seems to be corporate core policy. Leadership in the public sector needs reward. First a Federal state minister (Senator) then a Director Public Sector. First you work for the EU-Commission in the field of Intellectual Property regulation, then for Microsoft. And then you insult the Commission of political harassement and lobby the European Union for software patents.
But back to the eweek article from which the quote above is taken: Former ODF Leaders Turn Hopes to Compound Document Format. Isn't December 3, 2007 a bit late for that news, Mr. Galli?
Peter Galli, eweek: Former ODF Leaders Turn Hopes to Compound Document Format
