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Microsoft vows to publish Office Open XML formats

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8th Dec 2005
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Microsoft last week announced that it would sumbit the Office Open XML file format technology that will define files within the Office 12 release to the European standards body Ecma International.

The decision to share its formats breaks the habit of a lifetime for Microsoft, which has jealously guarded the defnitions and structures of market-leading applications such as Excel, PowerPoint and Word.

Jean Paoli, Microsoft's senior director of XML architecture, said on the company's website: "Companies are often forced to adopt inefficient and duplicative business processes because business-critical information frequently ends up locked inside data storage systems, such as a database that employees don't know how to access, or business-productivity documents, such as a long-forgotten spreadsheet stored on an employee's PC.

"We want documents to be represented using a standardised, stable and open format so that the owners of the content can use and repurpose it in whatever way they want, independent of the software they used to create it."

Paoli explained that Microsoft has been incorporating XML into products such as Windows, SQL Server and BizTalk Server, while XML has become increasingly accepted as a mechanism for transferring data between software from different suppliers.

"XML is about creating documents in which the content is delimited, or set apart, by tags that explain the meaning of that content." he explained. "So in a birth certificate, for example, a user could tag content elements such as the name, birth date, time of birth and place of birth. Having regions of meaning in a document conveyed via the XML file format allows documents of all kinds to be shared across the organisation and via web services."

In the past, Microsoft has had a habit of trying to tweak industry standards such as the Java programming language so that they won't interoperate with rival applications or operating systems.

As a result, many IT commentators still don't trust the company's apparent conversion to the open systems philosophy, and many see Microsoft's Office Open XML definitions as an attempt to sabotage acceptance of the Open Document Format (ODF) that underpins Sun's StarOffice application suite, which is also supported by Microsoft's other big rival, IBM.

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Dennis Howlett
By dahowlett
14th Dec 2005 03:32

Drinking too much MSFT Kool-Aid?
Can't let this pass. Microsoft knows it has the fight of its life on at the moment. It's in a deadly battle with Google, Sun and IBM. On the sidelines we have Yahoo! and a host of other upcoming outfits all challenging the MSFT hegemony. MSFT is so concerned about this it has employed Robert Scoble as its chief blogger to spread the MSFT word.

He's a really nice guy and has been successful to the point of putting a human face on the Evil Empire. He even gets to say negative things about his employer. And he doesn't get censored. But...don't be fooled into thinking that MSFT has changed so much. Scoble spends his life in the Open Source community. He's gathering intelligence. He's passing it on. He's getting insights into situations almost impossible without his freedom and trust status. Folk get to hear about stuff long before the mainstream press and much of the online world.

Much of what you see MSFT doing at the moment is around the consumer space. If it isn't careful, the business and corporate space will creep up from behind and bite it in the backside. Big time. It's already happening - at the BBC for instance.

That's why it is important to keep a close watch on the geek world and understand the dynamics of the marketplace. And not write off opposition so easily.

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By User deleted
09th Dec 2005 08:01

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? .........
Is this a case of Microsoft attempting to changing existing standards to fit Microsoft

It has happened in the past so will this be 'deja vu'?

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