No Valentines between Open XML, OpenDocument
31443
(InfoWorld) - It may be Valentine's Day but there are no love letters being exchanged between duelling electronic document formats, ODF (OpenDocument Format) and Open XML. Instead, Microsoft, the backer of Open XML, took a public swing at ODF supporter IBM. Microsoft posted an open letter on its Web site Wednesday titled "Interoperability, Choice, and Open XML," signed by two of its general managers -- Tom Robertson, who handles interoperability and standards, and Jean Paoli, responsible for interoperability and XML architecture. In the letter, Microsoft claimed that IBM is attempting to slow down the approval process by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to recognize Open XML as an international standard. IBM declined to comment publicly on the letter, but a spokesman said the company had previously addressed many of the issues raised by Microsoft. In May, ISO approved ODF as an international standard and is currently considering whether to award the same recognition to Open XML. ODF has the backing of such companiesÂ as IBM, Google, Novell, Sun, and open-source players. Open XML is the default file format for Microsoft's Office 2007 desktop applications suite. What has yet to become clear is which document format users will favor -- ODF or Open XML -- or whether they'd adopt a mix of the two. Some vendors, such as Corel, have already announced they're adopting a neutral approach and will support both formats in their software. IT users and governments around the world are expressing interest in open-standard document formats to help ensure continued access to archived information and also free them from having to use Microsoft's Office software. In December, standards body ECMA International voted 20 to 1 to approve Open XML as a global standard and submitted the format to ISO for its approval. The dissenting vote came from IBM, according to Microsoft. "IBM has declared victory in blocking Open XML," the Microsoft letter alleges, claiming that IBM is holding up the standards process in a "blatant attempt" to limit choice in the marketplace designed to favor the vendor's Lotus Notes groupware, which doesn't support Open XML. Microsoft and IBM are the two leading desktop collaboration software vendors with IBM's Notes pitted against Microsoft's Outlook and Exchange software. Microsoft is fearful that ODF may become the de facto electronic document format by default simply because it was first to achieve ISO recognition as an international standard, the letter stated. "In XML-based file formats, which can easily interoperate through translators and be implemented side by side in productivity software, this exclusivity makes no sense -- except to those who lack confidence in their ability to compete in the marketplace on the technical merits of their alternative standard," the letter continued. "This campaign to limit choice and force their single standard on consumers should be resisted." The timing of the release of Microsoft's letter is interesting given that it comes a day after the Oasis standards body announced its approval of a new version of the ODF standard, OpenDocument 1.1. The changes in ODF 1.1 are designed to address concerns voiced by advocacy groups that the previous release didn't meet the needs of people with disabilities. The level of accessibility support provided in ODF 1.1 is now on a par or exceeds that available in other file formats. Â
450620
Microsoft's purpose for suggesting its Office Open XML suite of formats become adopted as an international standard is not so it can leverage its seal of approval in sales. Its purpose is to enable the company to be perceived worldwide as cooperating with businesses and with nations in the drive for interoperability, especially for the benefit of the European Commission which maintains that Microsoft is an unfair competitor.
489175
Sunday, September 2 is the deadline for ISO member countries to vote on Microsoft's Office OpenXML -- the result will determine if it's approved as an international standard. Name calling, finger pointing and muckraking have sparked a debate over current standards-approval procedures and how they're affected by corporate influence. All this excitement over office docs?
87531
(InfoWorld) - Companies have completed the first phase of a Microsoft-sponsored project to create software that can convert Microsoft Word documents between Open XML and Open Document Format for Office Applications file formats. The Open XML Translator is now available for download in version 1.0 from SourceForge.net, a site that acts as an online repository for open-source projects. The software also can be found on Microsoft's Web site here and here. Microsoft funded the work on the translator, but did not contribute any code to the project, said Jason Matusow, senior director of intellectual property and interoperability at Microsoft. The company provided architectural guidance and management to the project, he said. A French company called CleverAge contributed the code and built most of the Open XML Translator, while Aztecsoft in India and Dialogika in Germany did the quality assurance and testing. The Open XML Translator allows Microsoft Word documents based on Open XML to be translated into ODF and vice versa, Matusow said. Once downloaded, it can be used as a plug-in for Microsoft Office 2007, the documents of which are based on Open XML. Developers also can build it into software they are developing. The Open XML Translator for Word documents is the first phase of the project. The team is currently working on translation between ODF and Open XML for spreadsheets written in Microsoft Excel 2007 and presentations developed in Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, Matusow said. Much has been made of the fact that MicrosoftÂ did not provide native supportÂ in Microsoft Office 2007 for ODF, though it provides support for 30 other file formats and uses Open XML as the default document file format. Matusow defends that decision by saying Microsoft tries to meet its customers' wishes, and there was no customer demand for ODF -- largely supported by rivals IBM and Sun Microsystems -- when development on Office 2007 began. IBM and Sun both use ODF as the default file format in their own rivals to the Microsoft Office suite. "A standard is about a stack of paper -- market adoption is the ultimate driver of activity," Matusow said. "What gets built and used is the defining element. That's why we look at the customer discussion as being so important." However, government customers that may be required to use only industry-standard technologies in their IT infrastructure requested that Microsoft provide a way to translate between Open XML and ODF.Â ODF recently was approvedÂ by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as a global standard, while Open XML is awaiting approval. Matusow said the reason Microsoft let third parties be the primary creators and caretakers of the Open XML Translator is because of the input of government customers who wanted Microsoft to provide a free, open way to translate between ODF and Open XML -- one that was not strictly overseen by Microsoft but was more of a community effort. To its credit, Microsoft did try to include native support for another company's document format -- a standard implementation of Adobe Systems Inc.'s PDF -- in Office 2007, but Adobe balked at the idea and asked Microsoft to pull that support, which it did. Adobe recently submitted PDF to the ISO for global standardization, and Matusow said Microsoft would again be "open to conversation" with Adobe about including PDF as a native file format in a future version of Office.
527211
(InfoWorld) - Standards body Ecma International expects to publish the final draft of the Office Open XML file formats specification proposed by Microsoft Corp. as early as Monday, ahead of a formal vote to adopt the specification as a standard in December. Governments are taking an interest in open-standard document formats as a way to guarantee access to legacy public information, and to avoid dependence on developers of proprietary software. Denmark's government voted in June to mandate the use of open-standard document formats in central government from Jan. 1, 2008. For now, five ministries are testing the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard, used in open-source software suite OpenOffice.org, and also in proprietary software including Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice and IBM Corp.'s Workplace. ODF is a rival to Office Open XML. If ECMA approves the Office Open XML format, used by Microsoft in its forthcoming Office 2007 software suite, the Danish ministries could use that instead. The French government is conducting a public inquiry into how to make its computer systems interoperable, but has reached no conclusions yet. However, in a report commissioned by the prime minister, National Assembly Deputy Bernard Carayon called for a law making it compulsory for French government departments to use ODF when they create or distribute documents. He suggested that France ask its European partners to do likewise when exchanging documents at a European level. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO)Â approved the ODF standard in May, but the Office Open XML specification is still some way off that status. Ecma's General Assembly will vote on the text during its meeting on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8. It cannot amend the text, only accept or reject it. If the final draft of the Office Open XML specification wins the assembly's approval, it will become an Ecma standard, and go on to ISO for fast-track approval, which can take six months to nine months. ISO may request amendments to the standard before voting to approve it. Both Ecma and ISO are based in Switzerland. Before submitting the text to the general assembly, Ecma's Technical Committee 45 will publishÂ the final draft on the standards body's Web site. That could happen as early as Monday, according to Ecma employee Isabelle Walch, and another source with knowledge of the process. The publication of the draft will give software developers a chance to make their applications compatible with the final version of Microsoft's Office 2007 document format ahead of the application suite's launch to business users at the end of this year. Technical Committee 45 has held six meetings to discuss the Office Open XML specification since beginning work on it last December. At the most recent meeting held in Trondheim, Norway, from Sept. 26 to Sept. 28, participants discussed numerical data precision, a mechanism for describing application characteristics, and extending spreadsheet capacity before agreeing the final draft, committee member Tom Ngo wrote in a report of the meeting. Ngo is chief technology officer of NextPage Inc. The meeting is chaired by two representatives from Microsoft, while other committee members represent the British Library, the U.S. Library of Congress, and companies including Apple Computer Inc., Intel Corp., Novell Inc. and Toshiba Corp.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
270667
UPDATED - In what could be Microsoft's most symbolic victory to date in the battle to legitimize the principal formats used by its Office applications, the State of Massachusetts officially declared Office Open XML -- the new standard format set in Office 2007 -- "another standardized XML-based file format specification suitable for office applications."
356531
Open XML Translator provides tools to build a technical bridge between the Open XML Formats and Open Document Format(ODF). As the first component of this initiative, the ODF Add-in for Microsoft Word 2007 allows to Open & Save ODF documents in Word.   As you might have noticed, the long awaited Release 1.0 is now available for download!  It has been 8 months since the project started in early June and we've been hard working all that time to ensure the add-In meets a high quality level. It has been tested over Word XP, Word 2003 and Word 2007 in five different languages (English, Dutch, French, German and Polish) thanks to DIaLOGIKa (http://www.dialogika.de/) and Aztecsoft (http://www.aztecsoft.com/).  Since the official announcement from Microsoft (see the press news: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/jan07/02-01OpenXMLPR.mspx), over 8000 of copies were downloaded on SourceForge.org (at the time of writing this news)! This is a great pleasure for us to see that the add-In has reached such an enormous success.  Already, we have received quite a lot of press coverage. A hit in Google for ODF Converter returns 871 000 results! We are proud to bring life to a project that has stirred a big crowd, sometimes positively sometimes not, as the whole open standard issue seems to have become a political controversy...  Nonetheless, we sincerely hope this Add-in will benefit the entire community in exchanging electronic documentation. Yes, exchanging documents won't be chore any more. Yes you will be able to read and write ODF documents even if you don't have openOffice suite (or other ODF implementations). And conversely, as Novell (http://www.novell.com/) has announced that the Translator will be natively implemented in its next version of OpenOffice.  But we won't stop here.... We'are also planning to work on Excel and Powerpoint and this should be availble by the end of the year (Novembre 2007), so stay tuned and keep on providing feedback as this will help us in future development!  Thanks all for participating in this exciting project! I'm looking forward to the next releases... ;)   Highlights of January Release 1.0      * Unified installer     * Localisation in German, Polish, Dutch, French and English     * OpenXML to ODF conversion :           o Change tracking           o Cross references           o Language for proofing           o Graphical bullets           o Better handling of page styles           o Line numbering           o Drop caps           o Complete footnotes and endnotes  For more information see:  https://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter
361172
The companyâs Office Open XML document fails to meet two criteria for a standards designation.
521056
InfoWorld - You might think the steady defeat of bills in several U.S. states to mandate the use of free interoperable file formats might dampen the spirits of IBM, one of the prime supporters of&#160;ODF (OpenDocument Format). Far from it, said IBM&#39;s Bob Sutor, who sees the recent news as par for the course in the evolution of any open standard.
498291
The defeat of Microsoft&#39;s Open XML proposal before the International Standards Organization is more than a small hiccup in the software giant&#39;s plans to make its document file format a global standard, some analysts now say.
134044
(InfoWorld) - New York has become the latest U.S. state to ponder whether to use open standards for government document formats, though the move is not necessarily good news for proponents of the ISO standard ODF (Open Document Format). New York State Bill A08961, sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman RoAnn M. Destito, proposes the state study how government documents are created, exchanged, and preserved and how these documents can be used in a way that "encourages appropriate government control, access, choice, interoperability, and vendor neutrality," according to the text of the bill. Though lawmakers in other states -- including Texas, Connecticut, Florida, Minnesota and Oregon -- have proposed similar bills that might have mandated the use of open standards for document formats, none of those states has ended up officially supporting ODF yet. ODF is a freely available document format and rival to the default file format in Microsoft's Office 2007 suite, Open XML. If what has happened in other states is any precedent, Destito's bill may end up going nowhere. Bills that would have required state agencies to use freely available document formats in Texas, Connecticut, Florida, and Oregon were shot down mainly due to the pro-Microsoft lobby, while a bill in Minnesota was passed only to study the possibility of using open document formats, not to actually mandate them. Battle lines between Microsoft and ODF supporters, such as IBM and Sun have been drawn for some time, and while both sides claim to have the best interest of technology users in mind, both have been criticized for promoting their own commercial interests. IBM uses ODF as a file format for its Lotus Notes 8 software, and Sun uses it in its StarOffice productivity suite. Key Microsoft rival Google also supports ODF in its Google Docs & Spreadsheets online application. So far, Massachusetts is the only U.S. state that has officially adopted an open documents policy that will include ODF support, though governments in other countries such as Belgium, Denmark, and France are ahead of the U.S. in mandating their agencies use open document formats. Microsoft also has submitted Open XML to be an international standard in the ISO (International Organization for Standardization, though it has been criticized for trying to control the Open XML specification more than is usually the case with standard technologies. Nevertheless, ODF is scheduled to be up for an approval vote before the ISO late this year.
296272
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft's quest to have Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) as a global technology standard seems to have recovered from a setback it suffered last week as both sides of the Open XML-ODF debate shore up arguments as the final vote to approve Open XML nears. The executive committee for the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), which represents U.S. interests in the ISO, approved the draft specification of Open XML "with comments" on Thursday after a technical committee that advises it last week failed to earn the two-thirds majority it needed to reach the same decision. Predictably, Microsoft is counting this move as a victory, according to a blog entry by Doug Mahugh, a Microsoft technical evangelist. "They'll reach a decision within the executive board on this proposed position by mid-August, which allows plenty of time for subsequent discussion or another vote if needed before the final U.S. position is due on Sept. 2," he wrote. The ISO is scheduled to vote on the Open XML that day. In a press statement attributed to Tom Robertson, Microsoft's general manager of interoperability and standards, the company said the decision shows "positive momentum" behind ISO ratification of Open XML. "It reflects the importance of allowing users to choose the format that best meets their needs and the fact that innovation and evolution will take place over time," according to the statement. When the V1 committee could not come to an agreement over Open XML, it seemed that things would not bode well for an approval vote from the U.S. in the ISO. However, even if the U.S. comes down in favor of the spec, it still faces opposition from other countries that also get to vote, such as Italy and Portugal, which have complained about the approval process Microsoft used to rush Open XML through another international standards body, Ecma International, on its way to the ISO. In the meantime, those who favor Open XML, led by Microsoft, and those who have misgivings about the technology mostly due to their interest in the rival file format Open Document Format for XML (ODF), are getting in some final comments for their respective sides. ODF has already been approved by the ISO as an international standard. Ari Fishkind, an IBM spokesman, said there are still issues around some technical details of Open XML that did not get fixed in the fast-track process. Those include a glitch that makes spreadsheets in Open XML unable to calculate dates before 1900 and a bias toward the U.S. and other countries that adopt a Western way of thinking. "It is not geared toward an international community," he said. For its part, IBM hopes that before the vote there will be as much "correct information" provided to the national bodies that vote in the ISO so they can make "an informed decision," Fishkind said. Open XML's approval as a standard is considered key to helping Microsoft keep its 90-plus percent share among productivity software users worldwide. Some countries and U.S. states have either adopted or are eyeing plans to use only technologies considered to be open standards for use in their IT systems. Approval by the ISO in addition to the Ecma approval it already has would lend more weight to Open XML -- and thus Microsoft Office -- being a part of those systems. Some in the industry are taking a middle ground on the Open XML-ODF debate and promoting both by emphasizing the idea of choice. Melanie Wyne, executive director of the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC), which promotes neutral government procurement, standards, and public research and development policies for software, said her group is promoting the existence of both ODF and Open XML as ISO standards because having only one global standard for document formats is limiting to end-users. "Technology is a rapidly developing area, and if you standardize on one technology, you could wind up losing out on functionality or applications that may develop in the future," she said. ISC is run by CompTIA, a U.S.-based technology industry association, and has about 280 member companies and organizations. Microsoft is among them; however, IBM and Sun, the two biggest proponents of ODF, are not. Wyne said that the ISC does not support any kind of mandates by governments or public agencies about what kind of technology is run in their systems. Instead, the group believes the key focus should be interoperability between different kinds of technology. "Our feeling is there are a number of ways to getting to interoperability, and open standards is just one in a number of those ways," she said.
524136
Microsoft quest to have Open XML approved by the ISO as a global technology standard seems to have recovered from a setback it suffered last week.
174283
Amid intense lobbying, Microsoft is expected to squeak out a victory this week to have its open document format, Office Open XML, recognized as an international standard.
55531
(InfoWorld) - The Swedish Standards Institute has declared its recent vote in favor of Microsoft's Office Open XML format invalid. It means that Sweden will probably abstain from an important upcoming international vote on whether to make the format a standard. The reason given by SIS was not the controversial circumstances surrounding the vote, in which Microsoft was found to have offered companies "incentives" if they voted in favor of OOXML. Instead, SIS cited a technicality, saying proper procedures had not been followed. "It appears that one of the organizations that took part had two votes. Since the rules weren't followed, the decision made earlier is void," SIS president Lars Flink told IDG's Computer Sweden. A new vote will now be held. It probably won't be possible to arrange it by Sunday, however, the deadline for countries to submit their votes on whether to standardize the format to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO will then tally the results and publish the result early next week, possibly by Monday. "The board of SIS knows that there is not much time, which means that Sweden won't take part [in the ISO vote], although we won't know for certain until Sunday," Flink said. He denied that the storm of criticism directed at the vote was behind SIS's decision to declare its vote invalid. "The vote has been criticized, but that is not the reason for our decision," he said. "The sole reason is that one of the companies that voted cast more than one vote. No member company has more than one vote." The original decision to accept OOXML as an ISO standard was taken by the Swedish working group on Monday. Microsoft Sweden was later found to have offered extra "marketing contributions" to its business partners to encourage them to vote for OOXML, according to e-mails seen by Computer Sweden. A Microsoft manager said this week that the e-mail "should never have been sent." SIS said it is now "practically and formally impossible for the Swedish working group to arrange a new vote before September, 2, 2007, when the global vote is closed. If a new Swedish vote cannot be arranged, Sweden will abstain from voting." About 100 countries will take part in the vote. OOXML is Microsoft's rival to the Open Document Format (ODF), which is used by applications including OpenOffice.org and Star Office. ODF has already been adopted by the ISO as an international standard, but Microsoft is pushing ISO to have OOXML adopted as well.
7904
InfoWorld - Companies have completed the first phase of a Microsoft-sponsored project to create software that can convert Microsoft Word documents between Open XML and Open Document Format for Office Applications file formats.
540975
(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is enlisting Linux distributor TurboLinux to help tailor work being done to translate documents between Open XML and ODF file formats for Japanese and Chinese users. TurboLinux has joined the Microsoft-funded but community-led Open XML-ODF (Open Document Format) translator project and will help ensure that documents based on Open XML can communicate smoothly with ODF-based documents in Office suites that use Japanese and Chinese characters, said Jean Paoli, general manager, interoperability and XML architecture at Microsoft. "TurboLinux is one of the major distributors of Linux in Japan and China," he said. "They are bringing more knowledge [to the project]." TurboLinux, which also distributes a version of OpenOffice.org for Japan and China, also will ensure those suites can read and write Open XML files, Paoli said. More information about the Open XML/ODF Translator Add-In for Office can be found on the project site on SourceForge.net . Other companies contributing to the project are Novell, Clever Age, Aztecsoft, and DIaLOGIKa. The project already has released a 1.0 version of the Open XML Translator, a Microsoft Office 2007 add-in that converts Microsoft Word documents written in Open XML to ODF and vice versa. Novell is including the plug-in in its own distribution of OpenOffice.org. A beta version of a spreadsheet converter add-in that will work with Microsoft Excel also is available, and project members are working on the final phase of the project, a plug-in that will convert presentation files such as those developed in Microsoft PowerPoint between Open XML and ODF. Independent of the Sourceforge.net Open XML/ODF translator project, Sun MicrosystemsÂ last week released a 1.0 version of its ownÂ ODF translator add-in for Office, called Sun ODF Plugin. However, it only works with Office 2000, Office 2003 and Office XP. According to Sun, it was difficult to build a version to support Office 2007 at this time because of a product feature that ignores installed filters and opens documents with its own. ODF isÂ not supported natively in Office 2007, one of the reasons plug-ins must be built for the software. Much has been made of the fact that MicrosoftÂ did not provide native support in Microsoft Office 2007Â for ODF, though it provides support for 30 other file formats and uses Open XML as the default document file format. However, at this point companies such as Sun and IBM and others accept that there will be at least two XML-based file formats for documents and agree that it's important to have technology that can translate between them.