Just because someone knows how to speak English doesn't mean he or she knows the meaning of all English words or can understand the meaning of complex sentences and paragraphs. Open formats do provide some degree of security in that the data is accessible. But they offer little assurance that the data will be able to be interpreted, transferred or used as intended. There are, however, other options. New ways to protect data are beginning to evolve.
Some firms now offer data-interpretation and evaluation services.
Under these arrangements, companies pay a one-time fee to have their data transferred to an open interpretive format. When the data is transferred, it's also documented and interpreted so the underlying data is understood. The data also can be evaluated for overall validity. This gives organizations the ability to transfer their data to other applications at any point in the future as well as to determine the accuracy of existing information. Other services can enable data to be updated regularly.