Microsoft’s battle with backers of the Open Document Format (ODF) standard could end up going the way that so many contests do: Won by Microsoft as much — if not more — because of the ineptitude of its competition than by Redmond’s prowess.

Just as Netscape and Sony ended up their own worst enemies, the ODF camp might unravel before Microsoft’s rival Office Open XML (OOXML) comes up for final international standardization vote early next year. Microsoft lost a vote earlier this year to get OOXML on the ISO fast track.

A number of ODF backers are abandoning ODF and throwing their weight behind the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C Compound Document Format (CDF).

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ODF, OOXML, XML, Microsoft