The release of Microsoft’s latest Office 2007 beta highlights the looming standards battle between Microsoft’s Open XML format and the Open Document Format. ODF is supported by a number of vendors but the dominance of Microsoft may mean that Open XML succeeds as the de facto standard. Unless enough public bodies insist on ODF.

All I really want is something that works. The vast majority of users have relatively simple needs, which are more than adequately met by what we have even if the current standard is a “proprietary” Microsoft file format. So many documents have been created using Microsoft products that I expect for many years, generations of software from all suppliers will include backwards compatibility.

To encourage users to acquire new licences (and therefore pay fees) Microsoft has to either deliver new functionality or appear to do so. Technology moves on and collaboration is becoming an increasingly important part of some large businesses. How many businesses, though, are large enough to be able to justify and afford the costs for a big implementation using Microsoft’s latest technologies? What’s wrong with emailing a spreadsheet or using an existing document management system based on versions?

Do we really need multiple users having simultaneous access to a document from the four corners of the globe? Yes, it would be a nice feature but the biggest problem is getting all those individuals together with the right technology. The human element is so often the obstacle – users just don’t want to do it the way the software vendors want them to.

I’m perfectly happy with Word as it is. All I want Microsoft to improve is the cross-referencing feature in documents, something I’ve been waiting on for some 15 years now. Apparently most users do not need or want this feature. And couldn’t the same be said of most of the features being touted as the next “must have”?

While I believe the number of documents created using Word will mean that support for them will last way beyond the life of the information itself, storing and accessing data is a real problem for businesses today.

The difficulty is not so much the file format or storage requirements, but rather document management as required by the regulators and the law. Unfortunately there is no magic solution to document management. All of the systems rely either on inaccurate post-event automated classifications or on humans, who are prone to outbreaks of defiance, laziness and obstinacy.

The only way to control the growing mountain of documents is to simply limit their creation in the first place. Do we really need that many memos or emails? I would argue that a lot of our business practices are in place either because of inertia or a lack of vision. Rather than look to the latest version of the software perhaps we should try to use what we already have more effectively.