Microsoft Open Office XML: Worse than you thought
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Blog: Microsoft has screwed up yet another standards effort.  This is getting old.
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Data exchange format is just too slow, some say. But there's debate over the best way to make Extensible Markup Language fly.
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TechWeb - But Ecma's approval wasn't unanimous -- IBM voted against the specification, saying OpenDocument, which is the default format in OpenOffice, is a &quot;vastly superior&quot; format, and another standard was unnecessary.
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Sharepoint is getting an open-source webpart.  This is good for Microsoft and for its customers.  It could be better, though....
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Everyone-hates-Redmond week It's been a good week for anyone praying for the demise of Microsoft Office. Google unveiled its long-awaited, web-based PowerPoint competitor. IBM took the wraps off the free Lotus Symphony, a complete suite of MS-battling tools. And now we have a new version OpenOffice.org.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Google, which has been less vocal than some on the furor surrounding the standards process for Microsoft's Office Open XML, came out Friday in support ofÂ the ISO's decision to reject the specification. In a post on its internal Google Code blog, Open Source Programs Manager Zaheda Bhorat said that the company agreed with the decision of the International Organization for Standardization not to approve the fast track of OOXML and listed some of the problems company engineers have with the format. The ISO voted earlier this month to reject an attempt by Microsoft to use another standards body, Ecma International, to fast track its XML-based file format OOXML through the process to become an international standard. The process was riddled with complaints that Microsoft placed people sympathetic to its cause in key voting positions toward the end of the process in an attempt to swing the vote in its favor. The company's decision to submit OOXML to Ecma and then the ISO has been controversialÂ as ODF (Open Document Format), which many rivals support, already is an ISO standard for XML-based documents. In fact, one of the problems Bhorat cited for why Google disapproves of OOXML is that it is incompatible with ODF. Other reasons Google supports the ISO decision are that the company believes there was not enough time to review the specification; there are undocumented features of OOXML that prevent implementation by other vendors; and dependencies on Microsoft proprietary formats and technical defects makes OOXML difficult to fully implement, according to the blog post. "Technical standards should be arrived at transparently, openly, and based on technical merit," Bhorat wrote on the blog. "Google is committed to helping the standards community remain true to this ideal and maintain their independence from any commercial pressure." Bhorat also used the post to stump for ODF, which Google supports in its Web-based office applications. IBM, Sun, and other Microsoft rivals also are vocal supporters of ODF. "With multiple implementations of one open standard for documents, users, businesses, and governments around the world can have both choice and freedom to access their own documents, share with others, and pass onto future generations," Bhorat wrote. Issues raised by Google and technical experts about OOXML during the voting process are set to be resolved at an ISO ballot resolution meeting been scheduled for Feb. 25-29, 2008.
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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.
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Microsoft Office, software for creating documents, spreadsheets and presentations, is seeing its growth slow. Microsoft isn't pleased.
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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.
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Microsoft Corp. has won approval for its Offfice Open XML document format from international standards body ECMA International.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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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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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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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.
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IT managers worry that XML documents will be bloated, but compression can yield smaller files and storage savings.
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It's easier than you might think to create your own OpenOffice.org extensions.
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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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InfoWorld - Sun&#160;has created software that will provide translation between the file format in Microsoft&#39;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.