An Update with Microsoft’s Open XML Standards
February 29, 2008 by Jerome Locson
Filed under Computers
Zoho Writer recently released an update with the support of DocX formats, which is the new Microsoft OOXML file format for Word documents. The update is good but what’s teh status of OOXML as a standard?
As Microsoft still pursuing OOXML to be credited for international standard by International Organization for Standardization (ISO), let us see some updates posted by Martin LaMonica at CNET News:
Microsoft said it will open up the application programming interfaces of Office 2007 to outside software programmers so that different document formats, such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), can be the default.
Gray Knowlton, group product manager for the Microsoft Office system, reiterated Microsoft’s position that’s Open XML, ODF, and other formats should coexist.
“We’ve said this before, but the goals of Open XML are distinctly different than ODF, PDF or UOF, and hopefully we can begin to separate the conversation about product functionality from the necessity for the Open XML standard. In our view, these have always been different conversations. The addition of these interfaces removes a potential obstacle to the adoption of other standards within our products,” he wrote.
That basic view is even shared by some of Microsoft’s competitors. Novell, for example, is working to support ODF and Open XML and its distribution of the Open Office open-source desktop application suite.
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