June 17, 2009
News Agency Integrates Editorial Processes with Familiar Productivity Tools
Associated Press (AP), who produce independent news content for thousands of news outlets around the globe, is setting up it's next generation news room. Do to this they are using the AP is developing an Office Business Application that will replace its current text-editor tool with Microsoft® Office Word 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server. Using familiar Microsoft Office 2007 programs, the AP will build a fast, stable application that will save development resources, improve productivity, and enhance editorial flexibility.
View the case study
May 11, 2009
Open XML Formats Simplify Digital Exchange of Health Information in Brazil
The Applied Information Technology Laboratory at the São Paulo State University (UnESP ), Brazil, conducts technology research projects. The lab helped doctors comply with a new XML-based standard for exchanging health data over the Internet. Researchers used Open XML Formats to embed the mandated XML schema compliant data into a form using Microsoft® Office Word 2007. Now doctors can fill out the form while simultaneously complying with the new standard.
View the case study
May 11, 2009
Microsoft IT Uses Open XML Formats to Deliver Scorecarding Solution over the Web
The Microsoft IT Business Intelligence Center of Excellence Core Scorecard Team created a Microsoft® Office Excel®–based interactive decision support application that was used by more than 3,000 people worldwide. When the team received a directive to Web-enable its application to reach more people, it turned to Excel Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. However, Excel Services doesn’t support the embedded macros in the application for distribution over the Web. The team used Open XML Formats to manipulate the application’s file parts and changed the file type to a macro-enabled file. Now more than 5,700 people are accessing the application through their browsers without losing any functionality. The team’s strategy solved a common business problem: how to maintain the rich interactivity of client applications and take advantage of the reach of Web application delivery.
View the case study
May 5, 2009
Content Technologies Uses Open XML Formats to Differentiate Authoring Solution
Content Technologies is well known in the topic-based content management solution market. The company created DITA Exchange to capitalize on the popularity of Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), an XML-based solution for topic-based authoring. To reduce sales barriers to DITA Exchange, it had to solve two issues: authoring in DITA XML requires specialized XML editors, and publication of DITA content requires a toolkit that isn’t capable of generating output in Open XML format. Content Technologies used Open XML Formats and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system to solve these issues and drive its product’s competitive advantage. DITA Exchange can translate DITA XML to Open XML and then back again, bringing DITA-based authoring to anyone who can use Word and enabling point-and-click publishing of DITA-based content to Open XML Formats for easy document review.
View the case study
May 3, 2009
Tyson Foods Improves Collaboration and Business Insight, Creates Process Efficiencies
Every day, the 15,000 information workers at Tyson Foods share information with one another to develop and market hundreds of products. To speed employee connections, strengthen business insight, and improve efficiency, Tyson deployed Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 as its companywide collaboration platform. Using the software’s Enterprise Search capability, employees can find the people and data they need quickly, and employees have created more than 700 personal sites to share skills and experience. Users can access dashboards that expose SAP data through SharePoint sites to aid decision making, as well as business intelligence tools that integrate with Microsoft Office desktop programs for improved insights. In addition, the IT staff has been able to quickly create powerful, new Office Business Applications that are boosting productivity and savings across the company.
View the case study
May 1, 2009
First American Title Insurance Runs Mission Critical Application on SQL Server 2005
First American Title Insurance Company, a subsidiary of The First American Corporation, traces its history to 1889. One of the largest title insurance companies in the nation, the company offers title services through its direct operations and an extensive network of agents throughout the United States and abroad. Over the years, the company acquired several companies, leading to a complex IT environment that at one point had more than 50 different title and escrow systems. The company united these disparate systems with its First American Software Technology (FAST) solution, deployed on the Microsoft® Application Platform, recently upgrading its FAST solution to Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 to take advantage of features such as Online Indexing and enhanced replication.
View the case study
April 30, 2009
Duane Morris improves operational efficiencies and collaboration
Duane Morris, a law firm in Philadelphia, US, has upgraded to Microsoft Office 2007, and is using the Open XML formats to collaboration in an industry where it is crucial to maintain document integrity.
View the case study
April 29, 2009
SAVO Group use OpenXML in their sales collaboration tool
SAVO offers a hosted Sales Enablement solution, also called SAVO. The company needed to upgrade SAVO to support customers that are deploying the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. It used the Open XML Formats Software Development Kit to enable customers to generate Office 2007 output in SAVO. The new file formats are more robust, and developers can use them to extend the product’s capabilities, providing SAVO with a competitive advantage.
View the case study
April 17, 2009
InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INSITS) votes Open XML IS29500 as an American Standard
The US vote to adopt Open XML - IS29500 - as an American National Standard closed on evening of Wednesday 15 April. As as result Open XML IS29500 is the newest American National Standard.
The vote was a 12 yes / 0 no / 2 abstain / 4 not yet split. Full results can be found here
March 18, 2009
DAISY Consortium's Collaboration with Microsoft Corporation Yields New Tools for Production and Playback of Accessible Multimedia
The DAISY Consortium and Microsoft Corporation announce the latest release of Save as DAISY, a free, open source add-in for Microsoft Office Word. With the integration of DAISY Pipeline Lite, Save as DAISY add-in Version 2 produces a full DAISY multimedia publication with synchronized text and MP3 audio, enabling users to transform Word documents into accessible multimedia formats for people unable to read print due to a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability.
Read the offical press release
March 5, 2009
Lithuania adopts Open XML as National Standard
Lithuanian Standards Board has made a decision to adopt ISO/IEC 29500:2008 Office Open XML format standard as Lithuanian National standard. The decision was made by Technical Committee 4 Information Technology on its 5th March meeting.
The proposal to adopt ISO/IEC 29500:2008 Office Open XML format standard as Lithuanian National standard was submitted by Lithuanian Archives Department under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. The submission was inspired by the development of the infrastructure of state archives of aggregation and preservation of electronic documents according to international practice and with respect of standards of International Standardization Organization.
January 16, 2009
ECMA-376 Implementer Notes for Office 2007 SP2 Released
On the Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 Office Open XML (ECMA-376 1st Edition) Implementer Notes Site you will find detailed information about Office’s support for the ECMA-376 specification. These notes will help ECMA-376 implementers interoperate with Office by explaining, among other things, Office’s support for optional features, range restrictions for attribute values, and how Office’s functionality maps to Open XML constructs. If you have specific questions about the content of any of the implementer notes, click the Forum button and follow the instructions to sign in and post your question. On the Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 Office Open XML (ECMA-376 1st Edition) Implementer Notes Site you will find detailed information about Office’s support for the ECMA-376 specification. These notes will help ECMA-376 implementers interoperate with Office by explaining, among other things, Office’s support for optional features, range restrictions for attribute values, and how Office’s functionality maps to Open XML constructs. If you have specific questions about the content of any of the implementer notes, click the Forum button and follow the instructions to sign in and post your question.
Read the DocumentInterop Initiative page
December 15, 2008
ODF 1.1 Implementer Notes for Office 2007 SP2 Released
On the Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 Open Document Format (ODF) implementer notes site you will find detailed information about Office’s support for each section of the OASIS ODF 1.1 specification. These notes will help promote interoperability by providing details that others can use as reference points for their own applications. For example, they include information about which attributes and elements are supported, as well as details about how Office functionality maps to specific constructs in the ODF specification. For a higher-level overview of Microsoft’s general approach to ODF implementation, see Guiding Principles for Office’s ODF Implementation. If you have specific questions about Office’s ODF implementation, or if you need further information about the notes themselves, please post questions to the MSDN interoperability forum.
Read the DocumentInterop Initiative page
June 11, 2008
Microsoft's first development kit for Open XML
Microsoft has released version 1 of an SDK (Software Development Kit) for its own Open XML format for downloading. The SDK allows you to search, create, check, and modify documents. In addition, there are functions to remove comments and other "personal data" from documents in Open XML, as well as in Office Open XML, aka OOXML. Microsoft says that this interface can be used with all languages supported by .Net.
Read the Heise Online Article
Download the SDK
May 21, 2008
Microsoft Expands List of Formats Supported in Microsoft Office
Microsoft Corporation is offering customers greater choice and more flexibility among document formats, as well as creating additional opportunities for developers and competitors, by expanding the range of document formats supported in its flagship Office productivity suite. Already providing support for 20 different document formats within Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel, and Office PowerPoint, with the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) scheduled for the first half of 2009, the list will grow to include support for XML Paper Specification (XPS), Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A, and Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1.
Read the Press Release
May 8, 2008
Microsoft grows DAISY for blind computer users while Adobe wilts
Microsoft announced the availability of a plug-in (downloadable from openxmlcommunity.org) that lets users of Word 2007, 2003 and XP easily save documents in the DAISY (Digital Accessible Information SYstem) XML format. DAISY XML is the latest iteration of a decade-old standard developed by the DAISY Consortium, a leading nonprofit group serving the vision-impaired, to be the most accessible format for blind computer users.
Read the Computerworld Article
April 2, 2008
ISO/IEC DIS 29500 receives necessary votes for approval as an International Standard
Office Open XML file formats, has received the necessary number of votes for approval as an ISO/IEC International Standard. ISO/IEC 29500 is a standard for word-processing documents, presentations and spreadsheets that is intended to be implemented by multiple applications on multiple platforms. The issues addressed and revised have resulted in sufficient national bodies withdrawing their earlier disapproval votes, or transforming them into positive votes, so that the criteria for approval of the document as an International Standard have now been met.
Read the ISO Press Release
March 20, 2008
New Case Studies Added Highlighting Benefits of Open XML
Case Studies from EMC Document Sciences (US), Quickoffice (US), IntelliSafe Technologies (US), Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Italy), Ipsos Szonda (Hungary), and FUJISOFT (Japan) were recently added showcasing how these organizations from all over the world have benefitted from using Open XML.
Read the Case Studies
March 20, 2008
Finally! INCITS Finalizes U.S. 'Yes' Vote on Open XML Standards Bid
After several rounds of voting and internal debate, the committee that represents U.S. interests on technology issues within the ISO standards body reaffirmed on Tuesday its support for approving Microsoft Corp's Office Open XML document format as an open standard, according to sources close to the process.
Read the Computerworld Article
March 18, 2008
I.R.I.S. Announces Cooperation with Microsoft
Belgium-based company I.R.I.S. Group published a press release today announcing cooperation with Microsoft that will result in Open XML being supported as an input and output format in the I.R.I.S. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and document compression server.
Read the Press Release
March 16, 2008
An Open Letter from Chris Capossela, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Office
Chris Capossela, Senior Vice President of Microsoft Office, published an open letter offering his perspective on the rationale behind standardization for Open XML, the benefits afforded to the broader industry that is actively implementing the current Ecma specification, and Microsoft's commitment to support the enhancements made to the current ISO specification under review.
Read Chris Capossela's Letter
March 13, 2008
Open XML Solutions from Imasoft A/C and Sklenar
Two new case studies have been added that showcase two software development companies who have benefited from utilizing Ecma Office Open XML Format based solutions for their customers. Imasoft A/C from Denmark created CrimeSceneNet, a product that creates 3D digital representations of crime scenes for law enforcement and Austrian based Sklenar created a text automation solution called TDIWiz, that allows you to easily and efficiently personalize documents.
Read Case Studies
March 12, 2008
Competitiveness and Innovation on the Committee's 50th Anniversary with Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft
Bill Gates testified at the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Technology's 50th Anniversary Hearing on Competitiveness and Innovation. Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, discussed our nation's technological advances over the past 50 years, the current state of our competitiveness, and a look ahead to the challenges we face. In addition, Congressman Brian Baird asked a question about Open XML and in his response, Gates highlighted the importance of standards and noted that Open XML as an ISO standard will offer many benefits.
Watch and Read the Webcast
March 12, 2008
Microsoft Releasing OOXML SDK
Microsoft plans to release the final beta of the Office Open XML Software Development Kit (SDK) next month, and release version 1.0 in May. The SDK will enable developers to write applications that can open, read, and otherwise work with OOXML documents, or port existing applications that work with documents in older Microsoft formats over to OOXML.
Read the Computerworld Article
March 10, 2008
U.S. Expected to Recommend Open XML as ISO Standard
The United States is expected to recommend that Microsoft's Open XML file formats be ratified as an international standard, according to people involved in the process. Two members of the technical committee tasked with setting the national position on a pivotal vote said the United States will retain its "Approve" position in a vote to make Open XML a standard at the International Organization for Standards (ISO).
Read the CNET News Blog
March 6, 2008
Intergen Launches New Open XML Web Application
On Thursday, at MIX08, New Zealand based software company, Intergen, announced a new product called TextGlow that combines Office Open XML and Silverlight technology to make documents viewable via a Web browser. Users will be able to view Open XML documents without having to download the files, a first of its kind, according to Intergen.
Read the Computerworld Article
March 6, 2008
ISO officials, others dispute claims that Open XML meeting was flawed
Today, Computerworld article reported the reactions to an assertion raised that last week’s ballot resolution meeting (BRM) was flawed. Alex Brown, BRM convener, defended the decisions he made and indicated that the voting procedures were "discussed in minute detail" before the meeting, in consultation with ISO's Information Technology Task Force. ISO’s press office added that the meeting "followed the orderly and inclusive process" set out by the organization, and that JTC 1 "is one of the most experienced and productive" of its technical committees.
Read the Computerworld Article
Related Articles:
- Infoworld: Denmark: OOXML vote won’t affect public sector
- Computerworld: Standards NZ claims Geneva success
March 5, 2008
BRM Commentary on Draft ISO/IEC 29500 Standard
A press release from the International Standardization Organization (ISO) was posted today summarizing the ballot resolution meeting (BRM) that took place Feb 25-29 in Geneva, Switzerland, on the draft international standard ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML file formats. At the beginning of the meeting, each national body was invited to raise the issues they considered to be their priority so that these could be discussed during the BRM. When it was apparent that it would not be possible for all comments to be reviewed individually, the meeting members discussed and agreed on a voting procedure to decide on the remaining proposed modifications. A total of 43 resolutions, involving dispositions or groups of dispositions, were accepted, most of them unanimously, some by consensus and only four by simple majority; four were refused.
Read the ISO Press Release
March 5, 2008
Patrick Durusau: The Importance of Being Heard
Following last week’s ISO ballot resolution meeting (BRM), Patrick Durusau, editor of the ISO26300 and OASIS ODF specification, indicates his support for making Open XML an ISO standard. In his open letter he writes, “Because approval of DIS 29500 insures an effective international and public forum whose members will be heard by Microsoft I recommend approval of DIS 29500 as an ISO standard.”
Read Patrick Durusau's Letter
March 5, 2008
Easily Translate Open XML to DAISY XML Standards
A free, downloadable add-in for Microsoft Word enables translation of Open XML documents into DAISY XML, the lingua franca of the globally-accepted Digital Access Information SYstem (DAISY) standard for digital talking books.
Read More
March 5, 2008
CHU Grenoble and Programmer’s Case Studies Added
Two new case studies were added featuring one of France’s leading healthcare providers, CHU Grenoble, and Brazilian based software and IT services company, Programmer’s. Read how they both benefited by implementing Open XML based solutions in their organizations.
Read Case Studies
March 3, 2008
ISO/IEC Ballot Resolution Meeting Concluded
Ecma International posted a press release today in regards to the BRM and the final 30 days of National Body deliberation on DIS 29500.
Read the Ecma Press Release
February 25, 2008
Your Documents, Your Choice: Open XML
A new policy guide that provides a compilation of studies and fact sheets that span government and policies around the world is now available. The studies demonstrate how neutral, objective, and competitive government procurement policies that do not exclude vendors from the process promote government efficiencies, competition, innovation, and economic growth.
For Governments page
February 19, 2008
Three New Case Studies Added
Check out three new case studies that showcase businesses from the United Kingdom who have benefited from using Ecma Office Open XML formats-easyJet, Park Group, and QinetiQ.
Read Case Studies
February 15, 2008
Microsoft offers patent protection for Office binaries
Microsoft said that it has added Office binary formats to a list of technologies that are protected against patent-violation claims, answering criticism from some involved in the OOXML (Office Open XML) file-format standards process. The OOXML format is being considered as an international standard by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization), but translation between the original Office binaries and OOXML is necessary for there to be seamless document exchange between older versions of Office and Office 2007. Corporate developers and makers of other office productivity products need access to the formats in order to write converters between Microsoft's format and the possible standard.
Read the InfoWorld article
February 14, 2008
New Case Study: BeyondIT Co., Ltd.
Japanese based company, BeyondIT Co., Ltd. created CrypType, an anti-electromagnetic wave information protection software product, used Open XML to help reduce development time and offer protection across all Office system products.
Read More
February 6, 2008
Open XML: A Poster Child for Open Standards Development?
Patrick Durusau, editor of the ISO26300 and OASIS ODF specification and the head of the delegation for the US standards at SC34, recently voiced his opinion on the openness of Open XML in a letter he wrote. Puzzled by the attacks that Open XML is not an "open" standard, he writes: "...a well defined and publicly controlled OpenXML would be a great benefit for future work on the OpenDocument Format standard so I have no reason to wish it ill." And, "...the improvements made to OpenXML during the process make it a poster child for the open standards development process."
Read Patrick Durusau's letter
February 6, 2008
Enabling Open Innovation and Interoperability
New paper for government policy makers examines the important role that intellectual property plays in driving innovation and interoperability in the IT industry, now available on the ACM Portal and on the For Governments page on this site.
Read the ACM Portal article and PDF
For Governments page
February 3, 2008
Microsoft Preps OOXML for ISO Vote
Michael Desmond, founding editor of Redmond Developer News Magazine, interviews Burton Group analyst Peter O'Kelly and references Tom Ngo of Ecma International regarding the outcome of the recent Open XML dispositions.
Read the Redmond Developer News article
February 1, 2008
Massachusetts Embraces Open XML
An article in The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel February edition, "The Power Of Choice: Massachusetts Wisely Embraces Multiple Document Format Standards To Drive Greater Competition And Innovation", covers the details of why and how the state of Massachusetts decided to include Open XML in their document format standards. Originally they had solely adopted Open Document Format (ODF); however, after years of debate, Massachusetts finally agreed to allow competing document format standards, specifically Open XML along with ODF. According to authors Francis M. Buono and McLean Sieverding, "Massachusetts became more transparent and democratic, government officials ultimately arrived at a more rational conclusion that permits multiple, interoperable standards to serve the unique needs of various users, which will lead to much greater choice, competition, and innovation."
Read The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel article
January 30, 2008
Four New Case Studies Added
Check out the latest case studies showcasing businesses benefiting from Open XML--Nuance Communications (US), NEC Learning, Ltd. (Japan), NSD CO., LTD. (Japan), and a variety of Indonesian-based companies cited in the pdf entitled, “OXML: Connecting People, Data, and Diverse Systems.”
Read Case Studies
January 22, 2008
A gadfly's take on IBM's 'support' for Open XML
On Tuesday, ComputerWorld’s Eric Lai’s blog highlighted his recent interview with Sam Hiser, one of the heads of the OpenDocument Foundation Inc. He asked Hiser about the January 21 article in ComputerWorld, “Lotusphere: Whoops! IBM products support Microsoft's Open XML doc format” and Rob Weir, one of IBM’s employees, response to it in his blog “An Antic Disposition” on January 21.
Read the Computerworld blog
January 20, 2008
Lotusphere: IBM products support Microsoft’s Open XML doc format
ComputerWorld has reported that according to IBM’s web sites, IBM supports Open XML formats in at least four of its programs. In addition, initial coverage of Lotusphere, occurring this week in Orlando, Florida, indicates that IBM will be offering a version of Lotus Notes that will work with iPhone and iPod touch—both Apple products that currently support Open XML.
Read the Computerworld Article
January 16, 2008
Microsoft OOXML finds favour in Malaysia
In Malaysia, a growing number of Malaysian IT companies and independent software vendors (ISVs) are incorporating OOXML (Office Open XML) into their offerings including Tradenex.com, the IT arm of the Federal of Malaysian Manufacturer, that represents over 2,000 manufacturing and industrial service companies. Last month, they launched nexCONNECT, an electronic business collaboration platform that links suppliers, distributors, logistics and financial institutions via the web.
Read the ZDNet.co.uk article
January 15, 2008
Independent Study Advances Debate Between OOXML and ODF
Analysts from the Burton Group issued a 37-page research paper that examines the differences between OpenDocument Format (ODF),
Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML) and other document formats entitled, “What’s Up, .DOC? ODF, Open XML and the Revolutionary Implications of
XML in Productivity Applications”. The study was not commissioned by Microsoft or any other tech vendor and found Open XML format to be more
pervasive and complex than the rival ODF.
Read the ZDNet India Article
Reports & Whitepapers
January 14, 2008
New Whitepaper: The Government at the Standards Bazaar
Research recently published in the Stanford Law and Policy Review helps explain the benefits of government restraint in mandating technology standards.
Read more
January 14, 2008
New Case Study: D&I Systems Consulting Inc.
Japanese based software development and system consulting company, D&I System Consulting, offers Office Open XML front-end technical support services. They have found that Open XML helps users exploit existing assets and handle documents and data in the user-friendly Office interface.
Read more
January 14, 2008
New Case Study: Advance Software
Advance Software creates software development tools and utility software such as data converters for their customers in Japan. They developed ExcelCreator 2007 and VB-Report 2007, two revolutionary tools that support file generation and form design utilizing Open XML.
Read more
January 14, 2008
Ecma Final Comment Disposition Report Released
Over the past several months Ecma’s Technical Committee (TC45) has been hard at work reviewing and responding
to each of the (3,522) comments submitted by ISO/IEC National Body members. Today, Ecma international announced
the final report containing all of Ecma TC45’s proposed dispositions for ISO/IEC DIS29500.
Read the Ecma Press Release
January 8, 2008
Solution Based Companies Show Benefits of Using Open XML
Intrasphere Technologies and MS Technology, two companies that offer Open XML based solutions for customers in India, were highlighted in
CXOToday.com, showing the growing worldwide support for the adoption of Ecma Office Open XML. Intrasphere Technologies, a consulting services
and solutions provider for life science organizations, found that Open XML cut their development time by at least 50%. MS Technology, a
software development company specializing in imaging and image-processing technology, reduced the amount of time spent on resolving
formatting issues by 70% as well as improving overall customer satisfaction.
Read the CXOToday.com article
Read the Intrasphere Technologies Case Study
Read the MS Technology Case Study
January 7, 2008
Over 92% of Proposed Dispositions Addressed by Ecma
As of today, Ecma TC45 has posted a total of 3,252 (92.3%) of the 3,522 ISO/IEC National Body comments.
Much of the specific information is confidential at ISO’s request, and shared privately with the participating
National Body members through Ecma’s password protected web portal. However, Ecma has provided some general
insights about some of the topics it views to be more significant or controversial in nature, and to which the
group has proposed recommended changes to improve the specification prior to its formal ratification in March.
Read the Ecma Press Release
Read the Ecma Status Report
December 21, 2007
Ecma Posts Third Batch of Proposed Dispositions
Ecma has posted a third batch of proposed dispositions, bringing the new total to 2,298 comments addressed - nearly
two-thirds of the total. In addition, today’s proposed comment dispositions include some notable technical
recommendations from Ecma TC45 aimed to further resolve some of the outstanding significant issues. Ecma will
continue its work to reconcile the remaining comments over the coming weeks, in preparation for the delivery of a
comprehensive report of proposed dispositions that will be issued by the ISO/IEC Project Editor in mid-January.
Read the Ecma status report
Read the Ecma press release
Get answers to Frequently Asked Questions from the appointed Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) Convener
December 18, 2007
Quickoffice Supports Office 2007 File Formats
Quickoffice Premier 5.0 released an application for viewing and editing Microsoft Office 2007 system
files on devices that run the Symbian S60 software platform. With Quickoffice, users can now open,
view, edit, and create Word and Excel 2007 documents in the XML format on their S60 devices.
Read the InformationWeek article
December 17, 2007
Haansoft Announces Support for Open Document Standards
On Thursday, December 13, the Korean based software company, Haansoft, announced that it planned
to support not only Open Document Format (ODF), but also Open XML in its next release of Hangul
software for Windows. This plan is based on their conclusion that ODF is not fully capable of
supporting diagram based documents which are frequently used in enterprises and government institutions.
Haansoft plans to cultivate its competitive power and lead the standardization of domestic office
documentation by supporting internationally recognized open documentation standards.
Read the ZDNet Korea article
December 16, 2007
Case Study - Fractal:Edge London, England
London-based Fractal Edge developed a product to offer businesses a fast and efficient way to view complex pivot table
information. Developers used the Ecma Office Open XML file format to incorporate specifications for a Fractal Map of
this data. As an open standard, the published specifications for the new Microsoft Office file formats are available
with a royalty-free license, which means developers can freely access the full documentation and quickly learn how to
integrate Office files into their solutions. Developers can use the greater transparency of the file format to navigate
its parts and relationships, locate information, and manipulate content. They can also use the more extensible formats to
develop interoperability between applications such as Microsoft Office Word and Excel.
Read the ZDNet Korea article
November 13, 2007
Microsoft and DAISY Announce Open XML to DAISY XML Converter
Today
Microsoft
and the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY)
Consortium announced a joint standards-based development project that
will make it possible for computer users who are blind or print disabled
to make better use of assistive technology in their daily lives.
A reference model for other Open XML solution providers, this open
technical collaboration project on SourceForge.net will yield a free,
downloadable plug-in for Microsoft Office Word that can translate Open
XML-based documents into DAISY XML, the foundation of the globally accepted
DAISY Standard for reading and publishing navigable multimedia content. The
plug-in is expected to be launched early next year and will be compatible
with the versions of Word within Office XP, 2003, and 2007.
Read the eWEEK article
November 3, 2007
Document Format Dispute Spills into the Open
A recent decision by the Open Document Foundation to substitute the World Wide Web Consortium's
Compound Document Format in place of the format it was set up to promote, the Open Document Format
(ODF), has sparked debate over what shape the format should take, namely, whether there should be
a single document format or multiple interoperable formats as cited in the eWEEK.com article.
Jason Matusow, director of corporate standards at Microsoft said, "The Foundation and other ODF
supporters have been saying that there should be only one format." Matusow continued, "Yet, when
it comes down to the real world of meeting their needs, even the organization that has a charter
to promote ODF decided that a different format was better for it." Mark Blafkin, vice president
for public affairs at the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) commented that any policy
mandating a single document format will limit flexibility. "[ODF] is not a one-size-fits-all
solution for all governments and users around the world," said Blafkin. Sam Hiser, vice
president of Open Document Foundation, described the move away from ODF as an issue of
application, not format. "If organizations care about compatibility with existing Microsoft
Office documents, [ODF] is probably not the best solution for them," said Hiser.
October 24, 2007
RosettaNet Uses Open XML Standard to Help SMIs Automate Procurement Processes
Today ZDNet Asia
announced the development work taking place at RosettaNet Malaysia
involving their newly Automated Enablement (RAE) based solutions that have been built
on Ecma Open XML standards. RAE based solutions help Small and Medium Industries (SMIs)
facilitate wider success of e-commerce while assuring long-term preservation of data,
enabling them to participate in the global automated business community. Open XML's
capability of storing and managing business data in documents has resulted in lowering
costs for business process automation that will enhance global competitiveness for
SMIs worldwide.
RosettaNet is a subsidiary of GS1 US, a non-profit consortium dedicated to the
collaborative development and rapid deployment of open, business process standards
that align processes within global trading networks.
Visit RosettaNet
to learn more.
September 4, 2007
ISO/IEC Releases Results for Open XML Vote
September 2 marked the close of the balloting phase for ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (Open XML). The results showed that 51 ISO members representing 74 percent of all qualified votes support ratification of Open XML. The criteria for ISO ratification and results of this ballot are outlined below.
The ISO/IEC JTC-1 rules require:
Results of this ballot:
Microsoft remains optimistic that Open XML will meet the above ISO/IEC requirements after the comments submitted by the National Bodies have been addressed during the upcoming ballot resolution period.
* Note: 32 ISO members voted in favor of Open Document Format (ODF) 1.0 at the end of its process and 15 ISO members supported PDF/A-1 at the end of its process.
For more information:
Read the ISO Standard press release
Read the Ecma International press release
Read the presspass
August 30, 2007
Resolution Meeting Confirms US Vote
As a result of the INCITS Executive Board Resolution Meeting held yesterday, the "Yes with comments"
vote cast last week by committee members was confirmed—12 voting "Yes," three voting "No," and one
voting "Abstain" on this motion. Today the position will be transmitted to the
American National
Standards Institute (ANSI)
, the U.S. member body to ISO, and they will place the vote.
August 24, 2007
U.S. Votes "Yes with Comments" for Open XML
On August 23, the INCITS Executive Board (the United States National Committee) made public their
vote on whether or not Ecma Office Open XML (DIS 29500) should be approved as an ISO/IEC standard.
They voted "Yes, with comments." A resolution meeting will be held on August 29 to confirm this vote.
The results of the vote were as followed:
These results passed the needed two-third majority required to establish the United States
position on an International Ballot. In 2004, the EU recommended Microsoft transition to
open document standards. The United States vote is one step in the direction to put Open
XML under the control of the ISO/IEC standards body. As they've stated, ECMA international
will work with the United States and all countries who submit comments to resolve those
comments as part of the ballot resolution meeting regardless of the outcome on September 2.
August 22, 2007
Germany Votes Yes with Comments on Open XML
The responsible Information Technology and selected IT Applications Standards Committee
(NIA) in the German Standards Institute (DIN) held a meeting about Office Open XML on August
21, 2007, in Berlin after months of intensive preparations. The meeting was attended by
representatives of software providers, application developers, scientific institutes,
governmental departments, and authorities. After detailed and constructive discussion
about the comments submitted, the committee decided to approve adoption of the draft of
ISO/IEC 29500 with comments. The DIN association emphasized that the approval of Open XML
includes various suggestions for improvement that will now be integrated into the standardization
process.
Gerd Schürman, Director of the Fraunhofer FOKUS eGovernment Laboratory, argued for the
DIN vote: "The standardization process of Open XML as an ISO standard will start now and
result in the technological advancement of both standards, Open XML and ODF 1.0." Microsoft
appreciated the decision of the DIN, stating: "The vote in favor of Open XML and the
constructive comments from experts from the industry, science, public sector, and politics
encourage us to continue developing Open XML for the purpose of our customers," said Michael
Grözinger, National Technology Officer, Microsoft Germany.
Germany's endorsement is one step closer to helping ensure governments, businesses, and
developers have open access to a platform independent, open document standard, designed
to be backwards compatible with billions of existing documents, that will reside under
the custodianship of an international standards body.
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