Office To Become Fully Open XML Compliant (at Last) 110
Andy Updegrove writes "Between 2005 and 2008, an unparalleled standards war was waged between Microsoft, on the one hand, and IBM, Google, Oracle and additional companies on the other. At the heart of the battle were two document formats, one called ODF, developed by OASIS, a standards development consortium, and Open XML, a specification developed by Microsoft. Both were submitted to, and adopted by, global standards groups ISO/IEC. But then Microsoft never fully adopted its own standard. Instead, it implemented what it called 'Transitional Open XML,' which was better adapted for use in connection with documents created using older versions of Office. Yesterday, Microsoft announced in a blog entry that it will finally make it possible for Office users to open, edit and save documents in the format that ISO/IEC approved."
ISO/IEC approved. (Score:2, Insightful)
But the "standard" still is a travesty.
Re:What the Fuck. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the thought of involving (Score:5, Insightful)
Please.
Re:the thought of involving (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM, Oracle, and Google all have a vested interest in an interoperable format. IBM and Oracle are professional services companies. Interoperable formats means it is easier for them to implement custom services and provides more surfaces for them to provide integration services. Google wants to know everything so it can advertise everything, and a better format is easier to get information from.
Microsoft is a vendor-lock-in company. OpenXML is designed to lock you in to their platform. They are they ONLY company that benefits.
Not much use (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember though, in Soviet Russia, standard chooses you.
Re:What the Fuck. (Score:5, Insightful)
MS got an ISO standard by buying it about 2 years after ODF was the approved.
Destroying ISO as a credible organization in the process.
Re:Vendor lock-in now ISO-approved (Score:4, Insightful)
What this story doesn't tell you is that Office 2012 is going to be cloud-centric. Remember, they're trying to compete with Google (which, oddly, does not support ODF format on Drive). They are pushing Office Online pretty hard, and even Exchange wants to act as an auxiliary source to Office 365 now.
Microsoft very much wants to control your data in the way that desktop apps and "personal computing" prohibit - and that Google is now able to do through Drive/Gmail/etc. They previously attempted doing so by locking down the file formats to maintain your continued purchases - the stick approach.
Now they're trying the carrot approach to control. They've been interested in this model for at least 14 years (I remember reading it in PC Magazine prior to Windows 2000 coming out). They want their products to be SaaS. They noticed early on what a fiscal bonanza SaaS was for antivirus companies, in contrast to Microsoft's constant need to upsell their latest and greatest candy dispenser. With the iStore, iTunes, Steam, Android Market/Play, et cetera, this has become all the more apparent - particularly in light of many previous customers migrating from things like in-house Exchange systems to Gmail.
Never underestimate the buying power of a free lunch.
Re:Tangent: Is open office really stable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Switching the conversation to be something offtopic: check.
Switching the conversation to be something that makes competing software look bad: check.
Not specifying concrete time frames: check.
Comparing an obviously old version of software instead of the new fork (LibreOffice): check.
Asking about trustworthiness of open source software: check.
I'm sorry, but your post looks like a complete troll. If not, please check out the latest version (3.4, if memory serves me correctly) for Mac, Windows, or Linux, and give us all an update as to its stability for you. There was quite a lot of work done on LibreOffice that OpenOffice didn't include in their codebase.
Re:Sure... Now that it's no longer relevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doubtful. (Score:4, Insightful)
That is disappointing. I was hoping for some amusing inconsistencies in the spec, and it turns out that it is just a few optional elements in there to support ancient packages and which the standard recommends that you don't actually support!
Is this really the reason that the entire standards organisation is denigrated, and that this format said to be impossible to implement? That is pretty lame. Why does everyone worry about compatibility tags that date back to Windows 3.1 days when the ODF spec neglected to document the spreadsheet functions at all? If you are looking for an impossible to implement standard, then that would be a more likely candidate.
Correction (Score:4, Insightful)
There, fixed that for you.
I'll believe it when I see it.