This is a big story - 126 posts at the time of writing according to Google News - reported fairly dispassionately here.
Microsoft’s own press release is here and that from the hither-to deeply obscure ECMA is here.
Despite the hype, Open XML is not yet achieved the holy grail, becoming an ISO Standard, […]
the document format battle is coming to the forefront, with this press release from Novell beginning
Novell today announced that the Novell® edition of the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite will now support the Office Open XML format, increasing interoperability between OpenOffice.org and the next generation of Microsoft Office. Novell is cooperating with Microsoft and others on […]
TechNewsWorld has an update on Massachusetts’ embrace of open technology, open standards and open source source software.
Massachusetts’ plan for adoption of open standards has been in place since 2003, according to Tim Vaverchack, manager of shared services for Massachusetts’ information technology division. “Our main focus is to bring in as many open source products […]
The Belgian government has decided to adopt the Open Document Format throughout its operations. The government will require that all departments can read ODF documents by September 2007, with a view to moving to full adoption a year later if all runs smoothly.
Peter Strickx, general manager for architecture and standards of Fedict, the organization that […]
The ODF finally got the nod from the International Standards Organisation this week, a grand event met with stony silence from Microsoft. In light of their continuing refusal to consider adding support for ODF to their Office suite, the OpenDocument Foundation announced yesterday that it has finished testing a plugin for the suite which will […]
Microsoft are hardly known for their direct interest in the Open Document Format - efforts to justify their continuing policy of ignoring ODF in their Office software have been nothing short of comical - so it might come as a surprise to some that they’ve suddenly become interested enough to claim a seat on one […]
Following a re-evaluation of their IT strategy, Bristol City Council have decided to consolidate their office software - currently a mixture of Microsoft Office, Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect - around a single software suite. The “obvious choice” of Microsoft Office was rejected in favour of Sun’s StarOffice on the grounds of cost, licensing and standards […]
Information Week has an interesting piece on the incursions of open XML formats into government IT.
It opens with the story of a proselytising organisation, the Center for Technology in Government, keen to practise what they were preaching about XML. After shifting their website to XML formats, the agency was able to reduce the maintenance […]
Quinn is the (now ex-) CIO of Massachussets, and the man responsible for the proposed move to open document formats. He was publicly accused on the front page of the Boston Globe of improper conduct in relation to trips to software conferences,of which he has since been exonerated.
In a Christmas Eve email to his […]
Ecma has accepted Microsoft’s proposal to make the XML formats used in its Office software an international open standard. News.com outlines the next steps:
Standards body Ecma International has created a committee to standardize Microsoft Office document formats, handing the software giant a victory in an intensifying struggle over desktop software.
At a general assembly meeting […]
The Computer and Communications Industry Association, a body committed to “Open Markets, Open Systems, Open Networks, and Full, Fair and Open Competition” according to their website, has called on ECMA to reject Microsoft’s Open XML formats on the grounds that it “does not meet basic principles of openness.”
Well, will they won’t they? It appears the governor’s office may have welched with this statement:
“The Commonwealth is very pleased with Microsoft’s progress in creating an open document format. If Microsoft follows through as planned, we are optimistic that Office Open XML will meet our new standards for acceptable open formats.”
The “progress” referred to is, […]
Microsoft has finally come up with a response to Massachusetts’ engagement with ODF, with an announcement that it will submit standards used in the next version of its Office suite.
Amongst those suspicious of the move (and there are many - the entire open source community, for example) are Sun, who have cautioned the state […]
…read about it at LXer. Also, the state governor had something or other to say (it’s good news on both counts).
In case you haven’t heard enough on the topic, ZDNet’s blogs go through the debate on ODF in the commonwealth’s legislature with a fine tooth comb.
Also on ODF, an industry consortium has come together to push the development of the standard at IBM’s behest.