Chinese software company to tailor OpenOffice
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Blog: RedFlag Chinese 2000 Software will employ about 50 new employees to work on Chinese-specific improvements to the open-source OpenOffice.org software, and Sun will help train them.
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The software company has undergone an extreme makeover.
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New Microsoft program smoothes transition from Chinese to English.
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SEPTEMBER 13, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - IBM announced today that it will release as open-source code some of its software for speech-enabling applications.
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(InfoWorld) - When Massachusetts' government decided to use Open Document Format (ODF) as the default document file format throughout its agencies, a key concern was that ODF would not allow the visually impaired to use assistive computer technologies. On Wednesday, IBM Corp. said it has helped solve that problem by developing technology that will allow applications based on ODF to better communicate with products used by the blind to access visual information on computer screens. Through Project Missouri, IBM developed application programming interfaces, (APIs) collectively called iAccessible2. These APIs will make it easy for visuals in applications based on ODF and other Web technologies to be interpreted by screen readers that reproduce that information verbally, IBM said. IBM spokesman Ari Fishkind said that in the past it has been hard for screen-reading technology to keep up with the advent of cutting-edge development and file formats such as ODF, AJAX (asynchronous Javascript and XML) and DHTML (dynamic hypertext markup language). The latter two technologies allow increasingly complex visuals to be rendered in Web browsers, and those are difficult to translate for screen readers, he said. iAccessible2 not only will help ODF communicate better with screen readers that assist blind computer users, but it will also allow charts, pictures and other visuals based on AJAX and DHTML to be discerned by the visually impaired through those readers. "It's like a universal decoder ring," he said of iAccessible2. The technology is based on interfaces IBM originally developed with Sun Microsystems Inc. to make programs on Java and Linux platforms accessible to the blind. IBM has donated its work in Project Missouri -- so named because Missouri is called the "Show Me" state -- to the Free Standards Group, a nonprofit group that promotes open-source software. That organization will work on the technology and maintain it as an open standard so anyone can use it, IBM said. Other companies working on the development of iAccessible2 include Sun, Oracle Corp. and SAP AG. Mozilla Corp. also intends to integrate iAccessible2 into its open-source Firefox Web browser, Fishkind added. ODF has been approved as an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and is currently in competition with Microsoft's Open XML file format to become the industry's default file format for documents. Open XML is the basis of Microsoft's proprietary Office 2007 productivity suite that also recently was approved by the ISO as a standard. Companies such as IBM, Sun and others are promoting the use of ODF against Microsoft's technology, while others will support both ODF and Open XML just to be on the safe side, in case both are widely adopted. The rivalry between ODF and Open XML heated up last year when Massachusetts put forth a proposal to change its default file format to ODF for all of its state agencies, which would mean they would have to stop using Microsoft Office. This eventually led Microsoft to submit Open XML as a standard as ODF was already going through that process. Increasingly, government agencies are moving their IT platforms to technologies that are considered standard throughout the industry, forgoing some technologies that are seen as proprietary.
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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.
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Following through on the company's groundbreaking deal with Microsoft made one month ago, Novell has announced that its version of the OpenOffice.org software suite will support Microsoft's Office Open XML format.
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Company hopes to attract users who will later upgrade to its small business software.
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(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.
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(InfoWorld) - SunÂ has created software that will provide translation between the file format in Microsoft's Office 2003 suite and ODF (Open Document Format for XML). The plug-in lets people who use computers with assistive technologies to access documents written in ODF. A preview of the software, called StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology, is expected to be available in mid-February with a final release on Sun's Web site by the middle of June. The software enables two-way conversion between Microsoft Office 2003 and ODF, a standard format approved by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) for office documents. Certain applications and devices that use assistive technologies -- such as screen readers for the blind and technologies that allow people who are quadriplegic to operate a keyboard -- come with drivers that are compatible with Microsoft Word 2003 or earlier, said Simon Phipps, chief open source officer at Sun. Vendors developing the assistive technologies have reverse-engineered Office 2003 interfaces to create the applications and devices, he said. "Right now, our focus is to ensure that people using assistive devices are able to join in with OpenDocument workflows," Phipps said. "Because Microsoft hasn't published interfaces for those devices to use, they are all hard-wired to Office 2003, and their users can't migrate to other software." Currently the state of Massachusetts, which is in the midst of a project migrating all office documents to ODF, is using the converter. Sun said it eventually plans to offer the converter for versions of Office that are earlier than 2003, and possibly for Office 2007, the newest version that was released last month. To create the converter, Sun built a library from OpenOffice.org that provides the same file conversions that are found in the OpenOffice.org and StarOffice productivity suites, Phipps said. Sun then added ODF support as a file format to all the places in Word using that library. Sun is not the only company that offers software to do ODF translation. IBM, which, along with Sun, is one of the most fervent supporters of ODF, has developed APIsÂ that specifically enable assistive technologies to talk to ODF-based applications. Through Project Missouri, IBM developed an API called iAccessible2 that make it easy for visuals in ODF-based applications to be interpreted by screen readers that reproduce that information verbally. Microsoft, which does not support ODF natively in Office, has funded the development of software that offers two-way conversion between the default format in Office 2007, Open XML, and ODF. The software, called the ODF Translator, was made available in 1.0 form last week on SourceForge.net. However, Microsoft did not include native support for ODF in its Office 2007 software, though it supports 30 other file formats in that suite. Microsoft hopes Open XML will follow the same path of ODF and be approved as an ISO standard; the file format is currently under consideration by the organization. However, Open XML is having trouble getting through the ISO approval process because certain countries are unhappy with the specification the way Microsoft submitted it, according to sources familiar with the process. Â
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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
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MacCentral - Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday said that it is looking for ways to work more closely with developers of the Open Office open source project, while at the same time, apparently reserving the right to sue them, according to a legal agreement between Microsoft and Open Office's major sponsor, Sun Microsystems Inc., made public this week.
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SEPTEMBER 16, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Microsoft Corp. yesterday said it is looking to work more closely with developers of the Open Office open-source project.
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Software giant wants to build a development community around its popular Office suite.
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Company is working on flexible display technologies.
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Microsoft-endorsed Open XML Translator project releases downloadable ODF converter.
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This week, IBM unveiled a new desktop software system designed to assist companies in boosting collaboration and productivity while reducing software costs. Big Blue said the system, called Open Client Solution, will let customers run the same mix of software products on Mac, Linux, and Windows PCs.