Narayan Murthy is for multiple standards

This has all the elements of a corporate battle, but what has made things hotter is that even academics and the country’s top institutes of higher learning have thrown in their hat.

The war of formats between the world’s IT superpowers—Microsoft versus IBM-Sun-Google-Red Hat—is now reaching its climax with companies scheduled to vote on Thursday to decide which format will be used for storing electronic documents.

Will it be Microsoft’s Open Office XML (OOXML) or the one backed by Big Blue and others called Open Document Format (ODF)?
What’s more, according to sources, both parties are offering director-level jobs at 200% hike to each other to help switch votes in their favour.

Interestingly, Infosys chairman NR Narayana Murthy has also joined the debate by supporting multiple standards. TCS, meanwhile, is in the other camp, where it’s being backed by the IITs, IISc, IIM Ahmedabad along with Sun Microsystems India MD Bhaskar Pramanik. Nasscom and MAIT, however, are finding it hard to support any party—both the camps being members of the respective hardware and software associations.

Speaking to ET on the issue, Mr Murthy said multiple standards are beneficial for the country. Keeping aside the technical issues, I think we should pitch one standard against the other as long as they are inter-operable. "As a business strategy, I see multiple standards being good for Indian IT companies. I am for making sure that there are two standards, so that we are the beneficiaries,” he added.

There are several in the academia and the IT industry who disagree with Mr Murthy, adding that OOXML is not inter-operable with ODF.

Referring to Microsoft’s OOXML, this is what Mr Pramanik said: “It’s necessary to have truly open standards that are technically sound and royalty-free to reduce the digital divide. It would be harmful for India to adopt standards that are technically flawed and not clear about the royalty implications on India and Indian firms.”