New Setbacks Dog Office Open XML
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Microsoft faces heavy opposition in the quest to gain approval for its document format. In Monkey Bites.
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The votes are in, and Microsoft's Office OpenXML document format fails to achieve international standard status with the ISO. Microsoft's OOXML -- the native office-doc format for Office 2007 -- needed a two-thirds majority approval among the national bodies eligible to vote on the standard. Ballots came in at 53 percent yes, far short of the 67 percent required.
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(InfoWorld) - Denmark's government agencies will be required to handle two competing document format standards, the Open Document Format (ODF) and Microsoft's Open XML, during a one-year test period that will begin next year. Denmark is requiring both standards for the test period since neither are "fully mature," said Rachid El Mousti, senior adviser for the IT strategy division of Denmark's National IT and Telecom Agency. A third party will evaluate the results of the tests in the first half of 2009, after which the Danish Parliament will conduct a further assessment, the Ministry of Science and Innovation said. The government is also requiring that new products bought by the agencies be able to accommodate at least one of the standards. It is also studying how its agencies exchange documents, including their use of converters to change document formats. Denmark could decide to use one standard, both, or neither of them, depending on market developments, El Mousti said. Government backing for document formats is seen as significant because it could help promote wider use of the standards in the market. If governments mandate the use of ODF, it could help office suites such as OpenOffice.org, which use the standard, to compete more effectively with Microsoft's dominant Office suite. El Mousti said Denmark has felt pressure from supporters of both ODF and Open XML, which was created by Microsoft and is used in Office 2007. Denmark has maintained an open dialog with all vendors, he said. "In order for us to succeed not just with open standards ... we of course need to have the vendors with us," El Mousti said. A Microsoft executive softly chided Denmark's move to mandate standards. "While I still believe that mandated standards are not an optimal solution for interoperability, this is an important step" in recognizing Open XML as a standard, wrote Jason Matusow, Microsoft's director for corporate standards, in a blog posting last week. Denmark does not widely use ODF. Most of its agencies use Microsoft software, and most documents that need to be published are turned into PDFs (portable document format). Microsoft has been strongly encouraging governments and organizations to use Open XML, which was approved as a standard by Ecma, a European standards body, in December. Microsoft argues that Open XML has more features than ODF, but some critics say the specification is overly complex. On Monday, the state ofÂ Massachusetts put Open XML on a list of standardsÂ that could be used for documents in the future, along with ODF. Â
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Microsoft's bid to win fast-track ISO standard status for its Open XML file format didn't get enough votes, which means the proposal will have to be modified and put to a second round of balloting early next year.
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Wag the dog Microsoft is facing growing criticism of its bid to have Office Open XML (OOXML) accepted as an international standard ahead of a crucial vote by the ISO scheduled for February.â¦
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Chicken hawk Microsoft is crying foul against IBM in its campaign for fast-track approval of XML Office file formats as an international standard.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - A technical committee in India unanimously rejected Microsoft's Office Open XML file format as a standard, ahead of aÂ vote on Sept. 2 by the ISO on whether to approve Open XML as an international standard. However, the rejection may be temporary should Microsoft meet some of the objections to Open XML raised by committee members. The technical committee was set up by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), India's national standards body, which is a founder member of International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and represents India at the international standards organization. "There were a large number of technical objections raised about Open XML, and many of which Microsoft was not able to address at this point," said D.B. Phatak, professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai. One of the objections was that Open XML was not fully compatible with OpenDocument Format (ODF), a rival existing ISO standard, he added. IIT Mumbai is a member of the technical committee. The decision not to back Open XML as a standard was taken after a late evening meeting of the technical committee on Thursday in Delhi. Microsoft and Indian outsourcer Infosys Technologies were in favor of the committee voting "yes" but with qualifying comments, according to informed sources. That option wasn't available for voters. Open XML will be again reconsidered for a standard by the technical committee and BIS after Microsoft makes the required changes to the document format, Phatak said. Microsoft said in a statement that it respected the decision taken by the BIS, but it was important to note that all the BIS members unanimously supportÂ  the need for multiple standards. The company will work with the BIS and the committee members on the comments noted during the ballot resolution process, the statement added. Â
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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."
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New versions of Office, Exchange, too. But are businesses ready to buy?
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A panel of software experts unexpectedly rebuffed Microsoftâs bid to have its open document format, Office Open XML, recognized as an international standard.
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Microsoft is calling IBM out over its opposition to Office Open XML, saying it is attempting to create a movement to prevent ISO standardization of the format.
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(InfoWorld) - A Microsoft employee on Thursday accidentally blogged about an upgrade to Office Mobile that shouldn't be available for another couple of weeks. The upgrade, when it becomes available, should solve an incompatibility issue that left Windows Mobile 6.0 users unable to read Office 2007 file formats. Jason Langridge, who works in Microsoft's Windows Mobile group in the U.K., wrote that Office Mobile 6.1 was available and he included a link to the download page. But a representative with Microsoft's external public relations firm said that the upgrade was put up on the site initially for internal testing and was accidentally made available to the public. The new version of Office Mobile is expected to become available very soon, probably within the next two weeks, he said. Langridge has not yet removed the post from his blog. The download page, which is no longer accessible, said that the upgrade allows viewing and editing of Word documents and Excel Workbooks and viewing of PowerPoint slides that were created using Office 2007.Â Office 2007 was released in JanuaryÂ and is based on the Open XML format.Â Windows Mobile 6.0Â devices began hitting the market in the middle of this year but users have been unable to read Office 2007 documents, unless they used a third party software product. DataViz, for example, offers software that lets Windows Mobile 6.0 users read Office 2007 documents. Users of the upgrade will also be able to view and extract files from compressed .zip folders, it said. Following the link on Langridge's site now leads to a page with this message: "The download you requested is unavailable. If you continue to see this message when trying to access this download, go to the "Search for a Download" area on the Download Center home page."
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Service pack says 2003 a very bad year Microsoft's Service Pack 3 for Office 2003 blocks you from opening certain file formats the software giant deems less secure - including its own.â¦
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Microsoft is calling IBM out over its opposition to Office Open XML, saying it is attempting to create a movement to prevent ISO standardization of the format. In an open letter posted to its Web site, Microsoft claims IBM is trying to limit choice by pushing the OpenDocument Format.
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ODF? It's for poseurs Large organisations that are considering a move away from Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) in favour of rival standard (Open Document Format) ODF should think again, concludes a new report.â¦
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Microsoft Corp. has failed in its attempt to have its Office Open XML document format fast-tracked straight to the status of an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization.