Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Sidebar: Microsoft Locks OpenDocument Out of Office

November 28, 2005 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Microsoft officials last week reiterated that they don't plan to include support for the OpenDocument file format in Office 12. In contrast, the beta version of the rival OpenOffice 2.0 suite, which uses OpenDocument as its default file format, can open and save files in all existing Microsoft formats.
Stephen O'Grady, an analyst at Denver-based consulting firm RedMonk, said it seems illogical that Microsoft would submit its own file formats to a standards body instead of simply adding support for OpenDocument to Office 12.
"I've never been one who says Microsoft should drop what they're doing," O'Grady said. "I just don't know why they can't add OpenDocument [support] alongside other formats, when they support WordPerfect and PDF."
But Alan Yates, general manager of Microsoft's information worker division, said that OpenDocument functions "very differently" from Open XML. Because of those differences, he added, it wouldn't be easy to build OpenDocument support into Office -- especially when Microsoft is already working to update its older file formats so they can work with Open XML.



Jump to comments

Software Development

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER
Approximately 60 percent of data migration projects overrun time or budget, while some fail completely. Download this white paper, "Enhancing Your Chance for Successful Data Migration," to learn the critical steps you need to take to execute a data migration project with minimum cost and risk to your business.
WHITE PAPER
Read the Gartner research note to learn why the TCO of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50% lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.
WHITE PAPER
Economic downturns have a tendency to accelerate emerging technologies, boost the adoption of effective solutions, and punish solutions that are not cost competitive or that are out of synch with industry trends. This IDC White Paper presents the results of an IDC survey of 330 companies in Western Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas that measures the receptiveness to Linux and takes into consideration changing views driven by the disruptive economic environment that businesses face today.