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Microsoft's Office Open XML spec gets final draft
Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba and the The United States Library of Congress have all approved the Office Open XML (OOXML) specification to be sent to the ECMA (a European standardization association). This is the next step in Microsoft's spec being accepted across many systems, platforms and applications. This is also the format that is the new hotness in the 2007 version of Office, at a beta-tester's workstation near you. I have to say that I have been very happy with Microsoft's 2007 Office system, and especially the XML format. It seems to make documents save and open a little bit faster, not to mention the endless interoperability features I haven't had a chance to test out yet. I think Microsoft is really on the right track here, and it shows, even in the beta. Hopefully this standard will be as versatile and flexible as we all think it will, but right now it is looking good.
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsGregOct 11th 2006 11:55AM
Google Doc's is up. I had a writely account and today it was in Google Docs.
adam wOct 11th 2006 12:57PM
i just hope that microsoft can issue an update to office 2003 to allow it to use the new xml formats. i got burned on a school project over the summer because of it. i was using my beta of powerpoint 2007 and saved it as .pptx (i'm pretty sure thats the extension) and i got to school to load it up and sure enough, xp didn't even recognize the file on the school computers.
if ms doesn't do this, i'm going to be mad because i got burned and got a 50% on the assignment because it was counted as late and i don't want other people getting burned that bad or even worse just because of the software they use at home is different than the school's software
MikeOct 11th 2006 12:57PM
@2:
Umm... I wouldn't say you got burned by MS, you burned yourself. You assumed that Powerpoint 2003 would have built-in functionality for 2007. Software is (almost) never forward-compatible. You also assumed that your school would have a 2007 patch installed on their machines. That doesn't seem very realistic.
I don't mean to sound harsh, and I understand it sucks to get docked on your assignment, but don't blame others for your wrong assumptions... Even if it is microsoft.
MikeOct 11th 2006 3:56PM
??? Just so no one thinks I'm an idiot and I'm debating myself, my above comment (which is currently listed as the second comment, is in reference to Adam W's comment (which is now the third comment in the list...) I'm not sure how the comments got sorted wrong, since the timestamps look correct.
asurrocaOct 13th 2006 9:15PM
I was talking with an open source-loving friend of mine who was shocked when I assured him that Microsoft's new XML format was destined to be an open standard. Thing's change!
Regarding the complaint about lack of forward-compatibility (wtf!?) in Office 2003, I'm no coder, but I don't think it would be too hard for Microsoft to toss in a patch to let Office 2003 read the new OOXML format. In fact, being an open format, it shouldn't be hard for developers at OpenOffice.org to add this functionality either!