The debate over digital sovereignty and technological independence has resurfaced following recent statements by The Document Foundation (TDF), the organization behind LibreOffice, which has denounced the vendor lock-in caused by Microsoft’s proprietary formats. According to TDF, the ubiquity of formats such as .docx, .xlsx and .pptx is not merely a matter of compatibility, but a deliberate strategy to trap users, businesses and even public administrations in a closed ecosystem. Although Microsoft argues that its formats are standardized under the ISO umbrella (Office Open XML), the practical implementation is far from open. TDF points out that two variants exist: OOXML Transitional and OOXML Strict. The former — the default in Microsoft Office — includes legacy elements, undocumented behaviors and peculiarities from Microsoft Office’s source code. The latter, cleaner and theoretically more interoperable, has been relegated to obscurity, even disappearing from some recent versions. In practice, only Microsoft Office can correctly interpret its own files, turning OOXML into a proprietary format with a standardization certificate, TDF argues.
This scenario does not only affect home users who switch programs and find broken page breaks, messy tables or substituted fonts; it also has deep implications for cybersecurity, business continuity and data sovereignty. When an organization accumulates hundreds of thousands of documents in formats that only one tool can faithfully read, it becomes hostage to a single vendor’s decisions. If that vendor decides to discontinue an application, as happened with Microsoft Publisher, files become orphaned and migration becomes costly and risky. That is why at Q2BSTUDIO, as a company specialized in custom software development, we recommend carefully evaluating the format architecture before adopting any office suite. The choice of format is not a mere technical detail: it is a strategic decision that affects cybersecurity, information portability and the ability to scale without third-party dependencies.
The debate around proprietary formats becomes even more relevant in a world where artificial intelligence and data analysis have become central to digital transformation. Companies integrating AI agents or Business Intelligence (BI) systems need their data to be accessible and processable in a homogeneous way. If documents are locked in a format that only one piece of software can interpret, any automated extraction, cleaning or analysis pipeline becomes fragile. For instance, a data pipeline that extracts information from .docx files to feed a Power BI dashboard may fail if the internal encoding is inconsistent. At Q2BSTUDIO we work with clients who migrate their workflows toward more open and scalable environments on AWS or Azure cloud, where interoperability is key. One of the first tasks usually is to audit existing document formats and define a conversion strategy toward standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF) or PDF/A for archiving.
From a cybersecurity perspective, reliance on proprietary formats also introduces a risk vector. Depending on a single implementation, any vulnerability in the reading software exposes the entire organization. Moreover, lock-in hinders forensic audits or the extraction of hidden metadata that could contain sensitive information. Therefore, having specialized cybersecurity services helps identify these blind spots and design document management policies that prioritize digital sovereignty. It is not just about abandoning Microsoft Office, but understanding that every technological choice — from typeface to output format — is an act of sovereignty, as TDF reminds us.
The solution is not an abrupt change, but a planned transition. Many organizations have a huge document legacy that cannot be abandoned overnight. The recommended approach from Q2BSTUDIO is to combine the use of open formats for new documents with gradual migration processes for old ones, supported by automation tools and cloud platforms. For example, one can develop custom software applications that convert batches of .docx documents to ODF or PDF/A, preserving structure and essential metadata. At the same time, deploying AI agents can facilitate the classification and extraction of data from those files, feeding Power BI dashboards or BI systems that allow informed decisions without relying on a single office suite vendor.
TDF’s stance, though harsh, aligns with a vision of digital sovereignty that more governments and entities are adopting. The European Union, for example, has promoted the use of open formats in its institutions and recommends ODF as a standard. However, market inertia is hard to break. That is why, from the software development and technology consulting sector, we advocate that digital independence begins with informed choices. At Q2BSTUDIO we help companies design data architectures that do not depend on a single vendor, integrating AWS or Azure cloud, artificial intelligence and BI coherently. The next time someone opens a document and sees that the format changes when passed to another program, let them remember: it is not a technical bug, it is a design decision that may be limiting their digital freedom.
