I’ve always been a horrible technology visionary, so I’ll probably be way off on this but here goes anyway…
Suppose the ‘Open document’ movement really starts picking up steam. I do see the need, in particular for governments, to have long-term electronic access to their documents. So if Microsoft doesn’t support the format, that may force more organizations to start using something else. But if Microsoft ever does add support for Oasis, that will remove one of the big barriers behind perhaps more widespread movement away from Office, and I just don’t see that ever happening. So this is a no-win situation for Microsoft.
And here’s where my likely way off vision comes in… If Oasis requirement does start snowballing and MS starts losing its grip on Office on the desktop, I can see them using anything and everything in their arsenal, specifically IP and software patents, to fight as dirty as they can. And that’s a fight I really don’t look forward to as I don’t think anyone will come out the better.