[MLUG] Open-Source File Format Is to Be a Part of Microsoft Office

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

If they really come through, this will be nice:  ODF will be getting a big 
boost.  --Mike


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/22/technology/22format.html

N.Y. Times
May 22, 2008

Open-Source File Format Is to Be a Part of Microsoft Office

By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN

Microsoft was set to announce Thursday that it would make the 
interchangeable document format of a competitor available in its own 
market-leading Office 2007 software during the first half of 2009.

The company, under pressure from European regulators, national standards 
organizations and its own government clients, said it planned to give 
customers the ability to open, edit and save documents in Open Document 
Format -- the main competitor to the Microsoft Word format -- through a 
free update.

With the update, consumers will be able to save text documents in ODF 
format and adjust Office 2007 settings to automatically save documents in 
the rival format.

Next year, Microsoft will also let consumers open and save files in 
Adobe's Portable Document Format 1.5 and PDF/A formats.

Chris Capossela, a senior vice president in Microsoft's business division 
in Redmond, Wash., said the decision stemmed from Microsoft's commitment 
to make its programs more compatible with rival software, part of general 
move away from a longstanding defense of its proprietary software.

The research firm Gartner says that Microsoft's desktop operating systems 
and Office application packages were on more than 95 percent of computers 
around the world.

ODF was developed in 2005 by the Oasis Forum, a group that includes 
Microsoft competitors like I.B.M. and Sun Microsystems. The idea was to 
let consumers save and archive documents, spreadsheets and presentations 
in their formats of choice. The result was OpenOffice, a software 
application package that resembles Microsoft's Office 2007 -- and can save 
files in Word formats -- but also enables users to save documents in 25 
formats. It is free.

In May 2006, OpenOffice backers persuaded the International Organization 
for Standardization in Geneva to designate ODF as the world's first global 
standard for interchangeable documents. Microsoft responded by developing 
a competing interchangeable format of its own, called Office Open XML, or 
OOXML, which won its own I.S.O. standard in April after Microsoft promised 
to develop it into a truly open and interchangeable format.

Ivar Jachwitz, the deputy managing director of Standards Norway, the 
Norwegian national standards-setting body, which adopted ODF as a 
recommended format for government archives, said the proof of Microsoft's 
commitment to ODF and interoperability would be seen next year, when the 
updated version of Office 2007 reaches consumers.

"We have heard a lot of promises from Microsoft, but as of yet, we are 
hoping for results," Mr. Jachwitz said.


Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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