Roadmap to change the way we document data

NEW DELHI: The OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance), a broad

cross-section of associations, academia and industry dedicated to improving

access to electronic government documents, along with India's leading technical

institutions, global IT majors and government agencies today held the first ever

national event in support of the OpenDocument Format (ODF), which will help

revolutionize the way we document, store, retrieve and share data across the

globe.






The organizations expressed their support for the ODF at the National Seminar on
OpenDocument format, held by the 'Indian (Indian chapter of the) ODF Alliance'

and the 'International Congress on Electronic Governance' at IIT Delhi.






Representatives from the various organizations deliberated on the potential of
Open Document Format (ODF) in India and action points, which when adopted, would

significantly change the way data is managed in the nation and help increase IT

penetration in the country, leading to a narrowing of the digital divide and

independence from particular vendors.






The Open Document format (ODF) is an open XML-based document file format that
enables the retrieval of information and exchange of documents



(including spreadsheets, charts, and presentations) without regard to the
application or platform in which the document was created - both now and in the

future.






In early May, ODF garnered sweeping approval in the International Standards
Organization (ISO) as an international standard paving its way for widespread

adoption. ODF was developed as an application-independent file format by OASIS

(Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), a

vendor-neutral standards organization. 






It is available for implementation and use free of any licensing, royalty
payments, or other restrictions. ODF has been an approved OASIS standard since

May 2005, and has been implemented by multiple vendors in a variety of products

as well as in multiple open source software projects. Further, the ODF

specification is available for use by any developer, including proprietary

software vendors as well as open source developers.

Bringing this to India are the key members of the National ODF Alliance -

which primarily include Sun Microsystems, IBM, Red Hat, IBM, Novell, CDAC and

faculty from IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Bombay.






Welcoming this initiative and highlighting its importance in Indian IT Scenario,
Chandershekhar, secretary, Ministry of Information & Technology, Government of

India said, "We are glad to note that with formation of a National ODF alliance,

India too would be playing a pivotal role in spearheading the ODF revolution.

Further, considering the huge potential of eGovernance in the nation as well as

the need to adopt open standards to make our data systems more inter-operable

and independent of any limiting proprietary tools, we feel that ODF is a great

technological leap and a big boon to further propel IT right to India's grass

root levels. I congratulate this initiative of leading private & public

organizations and wish them all the best in this endeavor."

Emphasising the importance of ODF for Indian economy, Jaijit Bhattacharya,

country director, Government Strategy, Sun Microsystems said, "As documents and

services are increasingly transformed from paper to electronic form, there is a

growing problem that governments and their constituents may not be able to

access, retrieve and use critical records, information and documents in the

future. Through the use of a truly open standard file format that can be

implemented by numerous and varied applications, the Alliance seeks to enable

governments and their constituents to overcome the issue and provide access year

after year."

Highlighting the importance of ODF, especially for burgeoning Indian SME

sector, Rajdeep Sahrawat, vice president, Nasscom said, "In today's borderless

economy, every firm regardless of size needs to integrate with its customers and

suppliers through exchange of documents. Adoption of



consistent document standards like ODF can significantly increase inter-operatibility
and reduce the cost of B2B and B2C transactions. This is especially true for the

SME' who can compete effectively by leveraging digital infrastructure at par

with larger organizations. Similarly, SME firms in the IT industry engaged in

developing IT products will be able to reduce the cost of product development by

adoption of standards like ODF.



ODF is a great technology leveler."





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