OOXML becomes an international standard
China Youth Daily: I heard that Microsoft OOXML has submitted to ISO (International Standards Organization - Editor's Note) "fast track" to prepare OOXML to become an international standard , after the vote on September 2 last year was rejected, there will be another round of voting in February this year.
Ni Guangnan: Yes, as an international standard, there will be some very high requirements, including openness, intellectual property rights and its own technical content. In the previous period, the world raised 3522 questions about Microsoft's OOXML ***. If it wants to become an international standard, there are still many areas that need to be discussed and improved. China also voted against it. There will be a meeting in Geneva in February and another vote.
China Youth Daily: Is this the last round of voting? Will there be other programs?
Ni Guangnan: If passed, OOXML will become a standard from the current draft resolution. If it fails, Microsoft will no longer be able to take this "fast track" and must go through another more standardized process, which will require repeated discussions and will be a longer process.
Resolutely support UOF
China Youth Daily: In order to compete with Microsoft standards, we are now also working hard to make the national standard UOF an international standard. Does China already have the strength to say "no" to Microsoft in the field of information technology?
Ni Guangnan: China’s information market is too big. my country has the largest number of mobile phone users in the world. The number of Internet users will soon become the largest in the world. In some traditional fields, such as aircraft, automobiles and other industries, it will take us a long time to catch up with developed countries, but information technology is a completely different field and is currently in a period of upgrading. China can fully leverage its latecomer advantage and achieve leapfrog development. The document standard based on XML is a new standard, and it applies to everyone, including Microsoft. This time we are all standing on the same starting line, and we have the strength to compete with Microsoft.
Now, China not only has market advantages, but also talent advantages. China should value its right to speak and can say "no" to Microsoft in the software field.
China Youth Daily: A few days ago, Microsoft stated that it would "firmly support UOF" and hoped that UOF and OOXML would become international standards together. What are their considerations?
Ni Guangnan: Microsoft has indeed made some concessions, mainly in the hope of alleviating China’s opposition through such statements. On the other hand, countries around the world have put forward so many opinions, and Microsoft also needs to make some improvements. This is a compromise it made under pressure from all over the world.
Because China has independently developed the UOF standard based on its domestic Office software and has a huge market, China already has a great say in the field of office software. Now, our UOF standard has been affirmed by Microsoft OOXML and the international standard ODF. Both of them are taking the initiative to show their goodwill to China, hoping to unite with China and strengthen their competitive position. It can be said that the initiative now lies with us.
China Youth Daily: We noticed that after Microsoft expressed its support for UOF, you gave feedback as soon as possible. It seems that your attitude is still reserved, and you want to "listen to its words and watch its actions." "?"
DOC Format Standard
Ni Guangnan: We welcome Microsoft’s statement, but we hope they can take more practical actions. Microsoft expressed support for the development of a "converter" between UOF and OOXML and unconditionally opened binary document format information. How well the "converter" does, we have to pass the evaluation to get the answer.
It can be said that this is not a simple technical dispute, but a battle between monopoly and anti-monopoly. Since documents are an important carrier of information, this is also a battle for control of information resources, which has a great impact.
In the past, our document standards were all proprietary to Microsoft, which was the DOC format standard. This has become a de facto standard and has great security risks. Because it is not open, it will add some information to the document that users do not know. Moreover, Microsoft's standards can only be compatible with its own Office software, which will create a new monopoly and be detrimental to the development of domestic software.
If Microsoft really does as promised and improves its openness, even if the OOXML standard becomes an international standard, it will have little impact on our UOF standard. Microsoft said that the "converter" makes the two This standard can be freely converted, so domestic UOF can be promoted and applied freely. These standards may survive for a certain period of time. However, judging from historical experience, there will only be one final document standard. Just like Microsoft's old DOC standard has become the de facto standard. This is caused by people's usage habits.
Mastering document standards will eventually promote the development of the entire information industry
China Youth Daily: What is the significance of developing UOF standards into international standards or de facto standards for my country’s information industry? place?
Ni Guangnan: This will form an innovation industry chain, and document standards are at the upstream of the industry chain and will have a huge influence.
As the UOF standard develops, domestic Office software can develop. This will further promote the development of domestic Linux, which is the platform on which all software runs.
It will eventually drive the development of domestic CPUs, because domestic CPUs can only run Linux, but not Windows. This industrial chain is so important! Mastering document standards will affect the hardware foundation and software foundation, and will ultimately promote the development of the entire information industry.
ODF and OOXML
China Youth Daily: For a long time, the majority of computer users seem to have been accustomed to Microsoft's document standards. Where is the living space for the domestic UOF standard?
Ni Guangnan: China has such a big market, which is our advantage. What we are working hard now is to promote the use of UOF standards as soon as possible and turn UOF from a national standard into a de facto standard in China. We have our own cultural characteristics and our own language characteristics. It is more convenient for Chinese documents to be processed by our own UOF.
At present, the other two international standards ODF and OOXML have stated that they can be used as "converters" to convert to UOF. This at least shows that they recognize the UOF standard. The UOF standard is open enough and can be used. To achieve fair competition, we must promote UOF freely. This initiative is in our hands.
China Youth Daily: How far are we from international standards? What more efforts need to be made?
Ni Guangnan: Whether UOF can become an international standard is difficult to predict. But as an open national standard, we need to work hard to promote it.
This year, both the Danish and Dutch governments have implemented initiatives to adopt open standards in their government sectors. Because you have to use Microsoft's private standards, you need to pay it a lot of patent fees every year, which is very detrimental to the country. Our government should also study whether similar measures can be taken in the field of software to make "open standards" a de facto standard in our country and have a status similar to "international standards".
Of course, this is a matter for the whole society, and the majority of users must also support domestic software, because there must be some discomfort in using it at the beginning, but this is just a matter of usage habits.
Office software
China Youth Daily: Have you ever used domestic Office software? How does it feel?
Ni Guangnan: I have been using domestic Office software. I was not used to it at first, but now I can no longer use Microsoft Office. From my personal experience, there is no problem in using domestic Office software and it can meet the application requirements. The next step is to promote UOF. Domestic Office must support UOF so that documents in UOF and DOC formats can be smoothly converted without "running the version" phenomenon, so that users can hardly feel the difference.
However, Chinese software companies are still too weak in terms of market promotion. The key is that there are too few users. Any software has to be used, and Microsoft's software is not perfect in one step, but a large number of people are using it, which means there are countless people helping it find loopholes. Because of this, it can often issue "patches" and conduct Version upgrade. We are now in a promotion stage to let more people understand and use domestic software.
"Government procurement of genuine software" cannot become "government procurement of foreign software"
China Youth Daily: You once wrote an article criticizing some phenomena in government procurement, calling for "government procurement of genuine software" "cannot be turned into "government procurement of foreign software." Do you think our government should take the lead in promoting domestic software, is that right?
Ni Guangnan: Exactly. This is an article I wrote in 2004. An important manifestation of the government's driving force lies in government procurement. Some people may think that after joining the WTO, requiring the government to purchase domestically produced software will violate WTO regulations. In fact, China has not signed a "Government Procurement Agreement" (GPA), and China's government procurement does not need to be open at all. But at that time, some places were influenced by the lobbying of multinational companies and purchased large quantities of foreign software. Originally, domestic software companies only had a slight advantage in the government procurement market. Now even this advantage has been lost, which must attract our attention.
Buying a genuine set of Microsoft Office costs 3,000 yuan, while domestic software only costs a few hundred yuan. Governments at all levels, including corporate procurement, must reduce informatization costs, and the money spent on high-priced foreign software should be used to purchase more domestic software.
Our government procurement should also favor domestic small and medium-sized enterprises. This is the case with government procurement in the United States, because small and medium-sized enterprises are the most innovative, and government support for them is conducive to industrial innovation. However, China's current practices favor some large enterprises, which is not conducive to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. This is very detrimental to the development of China's software industry.
The Indian Model
China Youth Daily: In the strategic selection and deployment of China's science and technology industry, it is necessary to consider the "world manufacturing workshops" dominated by cheap labor and the "world manufacturing workshops" with independent innovation capabilities. The two positionings of "World Manufacturing Center" have always been controversial. How do you think China should be positioned?
Ni Guangnan: China has the best market and the best talents, and it should no longer be the world’s processing factory. China must occupy the upstream of the industrial chain, instead of just taking orders downstream. We must promote the development of "Made in China" to "Created in China".
The "Indian model" will not work in our country.
India has been engaged in software outsourcing for more than 20 years. my country only clarified the strategic position of the software industry in 2000 with the National Document No. 18. It was obviously a late start. However, India’s domestic market is very small and its informatization level is very low. It mainly relies on “offshore outsourcing” to undertake foreign customization of software and services. The situation in China is different. Our domestic market is huge and the level of informatization is high. In my country's software industry, "offshore outsourcing" only accounts for 3%, and most of the software industry is for the domestic market.
The one near the water and the tower gets the moon first! With such a huge domestic market, why not strive to become bigger and stronger in our own territory?